I came into this section looking for a thread on recent political developments in Zimbabwe, and was surprised to find that there isn't one.
So here it is.
Basically, to anyone who's just tuned in to this programme, Zimbabwe recently had general elections. Prior to the elections, Zimbabwe was ruled by Robert Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party. It's probably fair to say that his rule has not been helpful to the people of Zimbabwe to put it mildly: inflation is at unreal levels (around 100,000%), people are having problems buying food, and Mugabe basically sends troops around demolishing homes in areas of the country who support the opposition. For a long time the Western world has publicly condemned Mugabe and his regime, but have really not anything substantial to intervene.
Fast forward to elections last month. For the first time, the Zanu-PF party lost its majority hold on the Zimbabwean assembly (97 of 210) to the opposition MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) party, who won 99 seats. It was also widely expected that Mugabe would be defeated by Morgan Tsangvirai (leader of the MDC) and lose his presidency. However, the results of the presidential election have yet to be announced.
Instead, Zanu-PF has delayed the release of the results. They have arrested a bunch of people for "undercounting" Zanu-PF votes. The suspicion is that they will call for a "run-off" between Mugabe and Tsangvirai, which is basically a second round of voting exercised when neither candidate has taken 50% of the vote. The opposition has expressed concerns (IMO very legitimate ones) that a campaign of intimidation and violence will be used by the government prior to any run-off, making a free and fair election impossible.
Somewhat disappointingly, no one in a position to do something about Mugabe seems to have any interest in doing anything. The West appear to have pretty much decided to leave it to neighbouring African countries to sort it out, but much of what has gone on appears to be those leaders trying not to get on Mugabe's bad side. It looks a lot like Gordon Brown and friends calling Thabo Mbeki (South African president) and saying "Could you talk to your friend?"
Frankly I think Mugabe is doing a lot more harm to his country than Saddam did to his. Saddam was a tyrant, to be sure, but he didn't appear to be going around systematically running Iraq into the ground the way Mugabe and his cronies are destroying Zimbabwe and its people.
(I've elected not to quote a dozen articles, but there is plenty of information on this on most news sites - start at the
BBC News page if you want to do some reading)
Your thoughts.