Missing results and "the mother of all election riggings..."

Nothing new, it seems, from the elections in Zimbabwe. The "recount" has been predictable, indicating a larger support for the country's official opposition MDC (47.9%), while Mugabe was endowed with second place (43.2%). No one, obviously, crossed the electoral threshold, so a run-off vote is imminent in the coming weeks.

Says Mugabe's former Information Minister Jonathan Moyo: "The mind of the electorate is now so fixed against Mugabe that if he were to contest against a donkey in the run-off, the donkey would win by a landslide not because anyone would vote for it, but simply because people would vote against Mugabe."

Let's hope this kind of momentum keeps up and overshadows any voting irregularities or tinkering on the part of the authorities. If caught with their proverbial pants down, I doubt that Mugabe's loyalists would be able to explain their way out of it. In the aftermath of the spring 2000 parliamentary elections, if I recall correctly, the authorities, though utilizing fraud to win victory, were shocked by the turnout of voters that went against the Zanu-PF grain...and then proceeded to clamp down on all protests viciously and violently by way of revenge.

Cohesive voting contra the authorities could, in theory, eclipse any fraud. If Mugabe chooses to resort to even grander fraud to secure another victory, then it could not be carefully tucked away -- and the rest of the region and world would know what is already, in effect, known. The legitimacy factor would be gone.

If the priorities of outside powers prove conducive to collective amnesia and malaise, however, then perhaps something of this sort would be do-able. After all, "The days that preceded the announcement were dark ones -- broken limbs, burned huts, dead bodies and unofficial curfews were widely reported." All of this would be but part of an ongoing pattern.