Zimbabwe poll rigged?

Submitted by Matthew on 7 August, 2013 - 3:22

Robert Mugabe has claimed a landslide victory in elections held in Zimbabwe on 31 July for the presidency and national assembly.

Yet Human Rights Watch reports that many voters were turned away and many duplicates were on the voter roll. A mole inside Mugabe’s Zanu-PF correctly predicted the alleged assassination of one MP and claimed that “disappearing ink” pens had been supplied to polling stations.

In a poll last year 65% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that “fear of violence and intimidation make people vote for parties or candidates other than the ones they prefer”.

Yet monitors from the African Union have given the nod of approval to these elections.

Despite claiming to be a champion against colonialism, Mugabe has pursued a neo-liberal agenda at the behest of the IMF and World Bank.

Mugabe’s main opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, trapped as nominal prime minister in an outgoing government dominated by Mugabe, and ex-general secretary of Zimbabwe’s Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), has called the elections “a huge farce”.

Trade unions in Zimbabwe face continued repression. The ZCTU supports Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change party (MDC), but has also criticised the MDC for acting against the interests of workers.

Workers should continue to organise for a genuine socialist alternative that expels market ideology and uses the mineral wealth of the country for the common good.

Here in Britain we should offer support and solidarity so that a strong, unrepressed trade union movement can emerge from the political ruins of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.

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