Zim Elections are Here
It’s a dark, rainy Friday morning here in the Western Cape. I woke up thinking it was still early morning. The started off quietly, and I woke to do laundry in my building. It may be a quiet day in Cape Town, but up north in Zimbabwe, the run-off elections have begun.
The day is finally here. According to Reuters on The New York Times, the runoff election between incumbent president Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai started slowly this morning. Down here in the the center of Cape Town, everything is quiet. The main headline of the paper this morning read: “Mugabe defiant to the end.”
I watched the wires for photographs coming out of Zimbabwe for a little while yesterday. Every few minutes a new photo would pop up—President Bush declaring North Korea was no longer part of the “axis of evil,” members of Group Eight after a meeting in Japan, and refugees in Zimbabwe.
Yesterday, three hundred Zimbabweans fled to the South African embassy in Harare for protection. Though the international community has been slow in condemning the upcoming elections, one-by-one the United States and others have spoken out against Mugabe. Mbeki, president of South Africa, however, continues to support his old supporter.