3.30.2008

Mugabe and the "coup"

According to Ed Morrissey, Zimbabwe's "president", Robert Mugabe has been trounced in that country's national elections. But that doesn't mean he will be leaving anytime soon:
Zimbabwe’s main opposition party has claimed an overwhelming victory in the country’s general election, prompting a warning from President Robert Mugabe’s camp that the early declaration amounted to an attempted coup.
Ed reports:
Government forces turned away large numbers of people from the polls, claiming identification mismatches as a means to depress turnout. It didn’t work; Zimbabweans swarmed to the voting booth, enraged by 150,000% inflation and the utter collapse of their once-vibrant agricultural sector.
Emphasis mine.

I was in Zimbabwe for the Summer of 2001, and one of the things I learned was that people often have to get new IDs with inaccurate information. For example, if you have to repeat a grade of school, you have to get a new ID stating that you are actually one year younger than you are, as it is illegal to be the wrong age in the wrong grade.

While I’m sure that Mugabe is turning people away regardless, I wonder how many Zimbabweans are being turned away for “identification mismatches” for this reason...

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