I got an email today from Sokwanele which I thought excellent except for the title and the last paragraph – two crucial parts of messaging (in my opinion).

The title, What More Must We Do? and the last paragraph

The people of Zimbabwe have spoken and it is now time for Zanu PF, SADC, all other African bodies and the rest of the world to respect and support the will of the people.

suggest that unseating a dictator occurs solely through an election. It does not, and in fact we’ve tried that a few times. Sure there needs to be an election to expose – what is so clearly being exposed – the work of Rigger Mugabe. But it doesn’t end there. A stolen election needs to be backed up by strong civic resistance. And usually its a good idea to have civic resistance guided by strong leadership. This is where Plan B comes in – the elephant in the room as far as the political opposition and civil society is concerned.

As the more sensible brother, Moeletsi Mbeki, said in a BBC interview last night, it is undisputed that Tsvangirai has won this election, and the election in 2002. This isn’t the point – the point is how do you get Mugabe to comply with the opposition electoral victory?

There is absolutely no question that the MDC has worked hard and campaigned strongly, but this is not enough. The MDC must prepare their supporters for resistance and be willing to lead them. Clear leadership from the MDC will mitigate spontaneous and sporadic violence. Civil society organisations must ignite their memberships (if indeed they actually have them) and lead them in defense of their vote. The international community must be prepared to speak out and support democratic change in Zimbabwe.

We cannot continue to sub contract the response to electoral fraud in Zimbabwe to the international community. We cannot continue to shield the MDC from criticism for their lack of follow through.

Clearly, there’s a lot more we must do.

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Here are some of the voices of the people

We have tried the democratic route more than three times now and the election has been stolen. We have tried the courts, and up to now Tsvangirai does not have a verdict for an election of 2002.We have no choice but to go beyond “round 2” and we have to exercise people power. Odinga asserted himself and the world stopped and listened. Politics is about making the appropriate judgments and if Tsvangirai thinks the international community is going to give us independence then he will remain in opposition forever. Way Forward: Let’s reclaim State House, its unoccupied anyway!!!

Not all that is faced can be changed and nothing can be changed unless faced. This is the time Zimbabweans should not fear to demonstrate to ZANU PF and to the world that we now demand FREEDOM. If we sit and watch, we die. We take ACTION, we die. Better take ACTION this time, the WORLD may feel sorry and assist. If we sit and watch again, we shall all perish leaving Mugabe and his cronies.

Lets all be prepared for civil disobediance that is non violent. This regime will kill in order to stay in power and gauging from the “political impotence of our neighbours”, they may not intervene to stop the killings. Civil society should go out and consult the real people out there.. Amanda wrote that they should leave the comfort of press conferences in hotels and go out to “conscientize” people on the possibilities of Mugabe rigging the victory. Gaining consensus of the people in the post election actions is critical.

We don’t want to hear of any rigging becoz if that happens it means we all have to go the bush and do the right thing – fight the oppressor. I really do not want to think about the possibility of this rigging becoz it gets me mad completely. I believe he has always rigged in the past and the voters physically did nothing to express their views.This time around, I am sure the voters are very much eager to know the full results. Any misrepresentation to protect the regime, will trigger mass demonstration.

And South African readers of the Mail & Guardian Thought Leader blog had this to say on the question of whether Mbeki would comment if the Zimbabwean election was rigged

There won’t be any response. Or there’ll be a typically vague Mbeki-ish response, you know, the one which takes the long and winding road which actually goes nowhere and says nothing. He’ll probably quote Shakespeare or someone at some point too.

Quite diplomacy will be the order of the day. Do you really expect anything else?

The South African observers will declare the election free and fair no matter what transpires. Based on their declaration we all know what our president’s response will be

Thabo? Respond?

Mbeki will deny that it was a rigged election. He will come up with some ridiculous argument to defend his & the ANC’s point of view. The old freedom parties like the ANC, MPLA, Frelimo, SWAPO etc don’t want to see an opposition take power by the vote. The winds of change are blowing again in Africa and the days of the one party state are numbered and it scares the old guard.

This entry was posted on April 1st, 2008 at 11:24 am by Bev Clark and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.