O golpe eleitoral da ZANU-Frente Patriótica

It was a tactical master-class from Robert Mugabe and his high command. The MDC floundered, hit by trickery, bad planning and split votes Harare has been eerily quiet since the elections – in shock at the Movement for Democratic Change's disastrous electoral performance. Former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s triumphalist eve-of-poll rally had convinced the capital that a change of regime was at hand, so it was unprepared for President Robert Mugabe’s win with 61% of the national vote, with the Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) taking three quarters of the 210 parliamentary seats. Few people expect the MDC's electoral petition, submitted to the Constitutional Court on 9 August, to succeed in getting the rerun it requests. In fact, Tsvangirai's faction of the MDC did fairly well in the towns, polling 70% in many of the 23 (out of 29) seats it won in Harare Province. In Bulawayo it won all 13 seats with ZANU-PF struggling to get 25% of the vote. The MDC repeated the pattern in the smaller cities of Gweru (Midlands) and Mutare (Manicaland) and even the smaller towns where it won a few and had near misses in others. Africa Confidential --- E o Mundo fecha os olhos. Já ninguém se está a preocupar tanto com o Zimbabwe, hoje em dia, como há nove ou 10. Mistérios? Ou será que o crime compensa?