The end of disgrace and tyrany in Zimbabwe?

Morgan Tsvangirai, garnered 67 percent of the 30 percent of votes so far counted, Secretary General Tendai Biti said in an interview today from Harare, Zimbabwe's capital. The MDC leads in Mashonaland Central province and won a majority in the province of Masvingo, both strongholds of Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party, he said.

``This is just an example of what we're getting from every province,'' Biti said. ``Barring a miracle, Mugabe can't win.'' Bloomberg


Robert Mugabe may have played a vital role in the liberation of Zimbabwe, but what people will remmember about him, is the ruin he has brought to a people and a nation that was like a city on a hill. Zimbabwe was the bread basket of southern Africa, it's schools, hospitals even roads were the evy of the region, now Zimbabweans are crawling through razor wire to escape the mess Mugabe has unleashed.
Those that claim that forcebly grabbing land from white farmers was a patriotic and noble thing, need to realise Mugabe only played this self destructive move to foster his grip on power and to prolong his overdue stay in power. His poor choices and policies over the years had already put Zimbabwe on the path to this ruin, the land issue was meant to divert people's attention.

He is indeed a disgrace to the memory of the many that fought and died for the emancipation of Zimbabwe. That fight was to ensure a better destiny for Zimbabweans not 100,000% inflation, not empty shelves, not unemployment, not police brutality and certainly not economic exile!

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday branded Zimbabwe's president a "disgrace" to his people and to Africa, and expressed concerns about verifying whether the country held free and fair elections.
Rice, in the Mideast for peace talks, made the harsh comments after voting Saturday in Zimbabwe that presented Robert Mugabe with the toughest challenge to his 28-year rule. The main opposition party on Sunday claimed an early lead; preliminary results were expected by Monday. AP

The Third Term reinvented!

The prospect of Bill Clinton who served two terms in the white house going back there if Hilary wins the next election, amounts to a third term in the minds of many Americans. There is mounting aversion to a growing trend of leaders who have had their time in office, crafting clever ways of retaining political power after their legitimate time in office expires.

This week against the current run of analysis, Putin has endorsed Dmitry Medvedev, first deputy prime minister and chairman of the state gas behemoth Gasprom, as his choice to follow him as president in March. If Medvedev does take power, can he keep it?
His decision to ask Putin to be his prime minister if he becomes president is a public recognition that his authority depends on Putin, and that he will be circumscribed by him.

In Pakistan all General Musharraf had to do extend his stay in office was change his manner of dressing. Western concerns have eased, despite a clamp down on political opponents, the judiciary and the press - under a new ordinance, unilaterally enacted by Mr. Musharraf, television journalists face up to three years in jail for broadcasting “anything which defames or brings into ridicule the head of state”.

President General Pervez Musharraf Wednesday relinquished the charge of Chief of the Army Staff - handed over the coveted post to General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani .

And what does all this mean for our African leaders who already have a traditional inclination to extending their stay in office?


Kashikulu hopes President Mbeki, if by some stroke of luck wins this month's conference that will decide who will lead the ANC going into 2009 national elections, will not pull up a Putin move as for Mugabe I truly hope he has not being following events in Moscow or Islamabad.

There goes Mugabe!!!

Like watching a drunk man walk down a steep flight of stairs against all pleas of caution, from sober onlookers….

Zimbabwe's ruling party has pushed a bill through parliament giving local owner’s majority control of foreign-owned companies including mines and banks.

The ZANU-PF party led by Robert Mugabe, the president, pushed through the bill on Wednesday after members of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) walked out in protest. ( Al Jazeera)

How can Mugabe, possibly think handing out companies and banks to his cronies will redress economic decline and put food in Zimbabwe’s hungry tummies.
If the farms he grabbed from white farmers have not produced any consumables since they were localized, what gives this senile man any hope, localizing companies will change anything.

Mugabe was in Zambia, teaching at Palabana training college in the 70’s; when Kenneth Kaunda’s Zambianisation experiment, was crumbling. There are many more lessons from history, how can there be no sane voice in the entirety of the ZANU-PF membership.

Am at loss for words, I can only empathize with the pain Zimbabwe’s children are being put through; the adults have their own conscience to grapple with.

President Mbeki - burying his head in sand?

Last week President Bush, when hard pressed to explain the lack of pragmatic leadership in Iraq, posed this question.

"Now, where’s Mandela?” Well, Mandela’s dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas." (President Bush).

Of course Mandela, the most virtuous pragmatist out of Africa, still lives. It is his successor’s lack of pragmatism that validates belief in the death of pragmatic leadership in the world.
Mbeki refuses to acknowledge the decimating impact of HIV/AIDS on poor South Africans. Much further, he prefers to deal with Mugabe, with his head buried in sand.

If Mbeki really cared about Aids, he’d do more than recall defective condoms, says A.H Smyth
South Africa's government is recalling 20m condoms and prosecuting their manufacturer - Latex Surgical Products - after a Bureau of Standards (SABS) official was accused of taking bribes in exchange for approving sub-standard products.
With 1,000 Aids-related deaths per day and a national infection rate of more than 20 per cent, the recall and the prosecution are commendable…….But the government's laudably prompt response will doubtless be used to mask bigger, political problems in South Africa's embattled health service. The corruption of a middling official endangers a relatively limited number of lives; the ANC's persistent refusal to acknowledge the scale of the Aids crisis threatens the entire nation. (The First Post).

And the First Post further speculates, that Mbeki may have his own personal reason for dealing with Mugabe with kid gloves…

How long will it be before South Africa produces its own home-grown Robert Mugabe? Only so long as the Almighty spares Nelson Mandela, since it is his miraculous influence that has stopped such an inevitable calamity already happening. (The First Post)