It's nearly 6:00pm in Zimbabwe, soon it will be dark, and the results are not out. My guess would be that we will not get the results today... but maybe I am wrong, the results do seem to be trickling in.... In a sense I will admit that the results are not my major preoccupation.
The vote was Saturday, it is Monday late afternoon in Zimbabwe. People are becoming restless. The police is in the street of Harare, people have been asked to stay indoors... I am just passing on what I read I am not in South Africa right now.
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I just checked again: we area at 19 and 19 (for Zuni-PF and MDC) ....still exactly even between the two sides. Ok, now this does not look good.
Why, why would it be that the results are even like this?? Who can seriously expect anybody to believe such results, always equal?
It is starting to seriously look like an election which is going to end up badly.
A few minutes later:
26 Zuni-PF
25 MDC
158 to go
I guess psychologically it is best to have the results equal for along time, then have Zuni-PF take the lead, loose it to equality a few times and let Zuni-PF win. This is probably the best way to manipulate the election results and try to minimize the resulting violence.
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Obviously my mind is on elections and I was thinking of Mozambique.
Mozambique was due to vote on January 16th (and even this was a postponed date) but these elections did not take place. The last time I was in Mozambique was about 3 weeks ago and the young guy who was helping me at work mentioned how he "should register to vote". I don't want people who read this to start associating the tension of the Zimbabwe elections to the delayed elections in Mozambique. There is no tension in Mozambique about the forthcoming elections, or the postponed elections...however you want to call them.
Anyway, trying to find when those elections were scheduled to take place I found an interesting website. So here it is for you a schedule of elections in Africa for 2008.
You can go to the original site African Election Database, a great site though it should be called "Sub Saharan Africa Elections Database" ......but when you look at it remember I have not checked, and will not check, whether or not the information is true though I would guess that it is a reliable source of information.
January 2008
January -
16 January -
20 January - Congo-Brazzaville: Local Elections
24 January - The
February 2008
17 February -
March 2008
March -
March -
March -
April -
June -
July - Congo-Brazzaville: Senatorial Election (Indirect)
31 August -
September -
05-06 September -
October -
No Scheduled Elections
December -
Nigeria
South Africa is due for elections in 2009 and right now the most likely candidate to win those elections (Jacob Zuma, who was recently voted in as leader of the governing ANC party) is facing corruption charges related to the $4.8bn purchase.
