What good would it do us to go to vote when people are being misled. People have been told that when they vote the serial number of their ballot paper will be noted and they will be questioned later about their vote. Such shenanigans and nonsense.

I admire the stance taken by Mr Tsvangirai – Its stopped the world.

But from an outside view, by Sunday it looked as though people weren’t even going to make it to their longed-for vote. If they hadn’t been chased away from their ward; if they hadn’t had their ID “confiscated”; if they could still walk or be carried, or still owned a hand to mark the paper…there would be dozens of roadblocks to get through…a tiny minority of stations would be monitored, even by the virtually useless SADC monitors…about 10 local monitors had been accredited…there would be no polling agents from MDC at any but a handful of stations, and those who managed to get there would without doubt be hunted down at the earliest opportunity. After all this, the ballots were clearly going to be stuffed, ZEC personnel are now firmly in the grip of the military (even if they weren’t before) and top leaders have already said they won’t accept an electoral defeat.

The decision has been widely applauded internationally, and expert legal opinion from Southern African Litigation Centre says that Mugabe has not necessarily been handed a victory in anyone’s eyes but his own, since the run off may “on a technicality” (and not a minor one either), be unconstitutional. According to this view Tsvangirai is the legitimate winner. There will be a final push, of that there can be no doubt – just not in this sham election run off.