Zimbabwe Poll 'A Huge Farce, Null And Void'

I don't really understand why Mugabe wants to cling on to power so desperately - I think he'll be 94 by the time this term ends. The election does seem somewhat suspect, but the African nations seem to be falling over themselves to say the opposite. I don't know - perhaps they know something that we don't, or perhaps he has some hold over them in some way. It's seems a very strange situation altogether, though.

This and the other issues going on with possible election manipulations (not just in Africa, but across the world, including some reports of irregularities from the USA, of course) makes me think that maybe it's time for a proper, independent UN-sanctioned electoral system to be brought in. Not that the UN should have any influence in national issues, obviously, but just that the UN and its members won't recognise the legal validity of an election result unless it has been overseen, or even run directly, by UN observers or their recognised independent scrutineers, or something like that. We have that kind of system in the UK in a sense, for things like union ballots - they have to be run by qualified and independent scrutineers (in practise, almost always the Electoral Reform Society, who conduct the ballot directly with members themselves by post) so that the union leadership (and other officials) can't in any way tamper with the votes or results. Without that, they aren't considered legal - perhaps the UN should be putting in place a similar kind of system for its members.

It seems like we (the Western World) are 'pushing' democracy onto all kinds of places that just haven't been used to the system, and although it is, I believe, the right system for a country to have, without helping them to do it properly and effectively, and just accepting whatever result they come up with, I'm not sure that we're doing them any favours in the long term. I know such a UN solution would be very difficult (OK, impossible!) to actually get agreed at the UN (far too many current leaders who would have no interest in not being able to fix their own election results!), but perhaps we should really be pushing for it now. The number of dodgy, dubious and suspect elections going on in the world is just getting silly!

To say Mugabe's rhetoric is slightly disturbing would be the understatement of the decade!
news.sky.com/story/1127637/zimbabwes-mugabe-tells-critics-to-go-hang

It is indeed sad time, and once again the Plunderer in Chief of SA, President Zuma follows his best interest, and praises then dictator to our north.

What a disgrace...


AH