Zimbabweans will go to the polls on Saturday, March 29 - a decision that ends all hopes of success for the mediation talks.
President Mugabe has finally turned his back on the negotiations, hosted by President Thabo Mbeki, with the opposition MDC, and announced that the joint parliamentary and presidential elections will take place as early as March 29.
The MDC has been looking for guarantees that the elections this year would be substantially fair. Mugabe's decision to go to the country is seen by observers as a guarantee that the reverse will be true.
The proclamation of the elections, which also formally disolves parliament from midnight on March 28, was published by the state printer in Harare, though at the time of writing it has not been mentioned by our state broadcaster. Assuming that it is not in some way rescinded, it means that prospective candidates will have to move fast.
The nomination court will sit in various provinces on February 8, less than two weeks away, to receive candidates for parliamentary and council elections. Candidates for the office of President must submit their names at the nomination court sitting at Mashonganyika Building in Harare on the same day.
The MDC, now once again looking down the barrel of a rigged election that will destroy their hopes for another five years, are furious.
Their spokesman, Nelson Chamisa, told me: "It is an act of madness and arrogance, and a slap in the face for the efforts of South African President Thabo Mbeki, to mediate between us and Zanu-PF."
Asked if there is a possibility that the MDC will boycott the elections, thus turning them into an even more extreme farce, Chamisa said he could no pre-empt that decision.
The MDC's attitude is understandable. Already I have been informed by sources from within Zanu-PF that government plans for extensive vote-rigging and bribery are fully in place. I will be writing more about them shortly. It won't make pleasant reading for anyone interested in democracy in our poor country.
With his past record this is not a surprising turn of events at all, in fact it isn't a 'turn' of events at all, rather just 'business as usual'.
He rigged his first election using intimidation and terror tactics under the noses of the Commonwealth, and he has continued to do so ever since, thumbing his nose at the international communities, and indeed his own people of all colours and creeds.
Most Rhodesians and Zimbabwe-Rhodesians at the time of the original elections could see that the only way forward under ZANU/ZAPU rulership was under Joshua Nkomo, who had more of an affinity with hs countrymen than the greedy and power obsessed Mugabe, but this was not to be. Robert Gabriel Mugabe is indeed President for life, and Zimbabwe, for all ZANU-PF's efforts to give the contrary image, is still a one party dictatorship, and the only way they will ever be removed from their destructive reign is the same way they got it in the first place ..... bloody civil war. This is desirable for neither the people of Zimbabwe, or of the former Rhodesia ..... but how long can the country hold out before Her people break under the strain of broken promises and outright violence?
Posted by: Michael Wilton | Sunday, 27 January 2008 at 15:38
how many souls will die by March 29 at the hands of Zanu Pf thugs
will Zimbabweans react like Kenya's for we all know the election have been rigged and am the first to say congrats Bob for a resounding victry!
Posted by: steve | Monday, 28 January 2008 at 07:32