h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ok, looks like Mugabe is going to win again by rigging the election or not as the case may be.

Do we *really* have the right to interfere here or should we just butt out and let them run their own affairs?

After all, it's not *sooo* long ago that the western democracies had ballott rigging and intimidation routinely in elections. When was the secret ballott introcuded, how long have women had the vote?
Also, who's to say that the opposition leader would be any less corrupt than Mugabe allegedly is? I recall a few years back his main opponent was Joshua Nkomo, a leader who would have been no better himself.

Any comments?

Well, if one wants to see a good example of vote miscounting, election curruption and the wrong person being elected - look no further than the last presidential election in the US. It is now accepted that Gore got more votes and should have been president - but did we in the UK say anything?

I am concerned about Mugabwe and the brutal hold he has over the people of Zimbabwe, but if we are going to complain about unfair elections, we should be consistent.

I read about the Amnesty International report about these elections and it was scary. More than 1.400 political convicts...

I really find the whole thing depressing . Democracy ain't perfect, but it's a darn sight better than dictatorship, and when you see tyrants like Mugabe blatantly ride roughshod over democratic structures and human rights in order to win votes with the outside world shrugging its shoulders, its a sign that no democratic system anywhere is really safe.

I think the pot shot at the US is a complete red herring. What exactly has it got to do with Zimbabwe? My understanding is that Bush won his election fair and square, verified in a subsequent recount of all the votes, and I think, to be fair to the Americans, they accepted the outcome graciously and got on with life under Bush. There is no allegation that officials rigged the polls, there are no allegation that the Republican party intimidated voters, there was no overruling of supreme court decisions, no closing of polling stations in strongly Democratic areas, no strategy of multiple-voting for pro-government voters, no expulsion of international journalists, no burning and murdering of sections of the population in order to win respect, no prevention of access to the counts, no arrests of opposition politicians in the run-up to the election.

In Zimbabwe, the situation is a lot different. The signs were that Mugabe was going to lose bigtime, so he did everything in his power to destroy common democracy and the rule of law to get his way. What really annoys me is that some countries, ie. South Africa, have actually accepted this behaviour. What kind of message is this to send out?

Personally, I think he is a war criminal, and should be arrested and tried in the Hague.

What about China? One of the most ruthless 'dictatorships' in the world and where there are no human rights. Yet, Blair (and the Queen) welcomed their leader with open arms.

What about East Timor? Where the native population has been brutally murdered and bombed (with aircraft supplied by Britain).

I totally agree that Mugabwe is a brutal, murderous dictator, but there are many others around the world who for 'diplomatic' reasons we choose not to criticise.

The US election was a ocmplete farce. The whole election hung on the Florida vote, which was counted and re-counted whilst lawyers argued for more time to count and whether certain votes were allowed.

Bearing in mind one of the candidate's brother (Bush) was the controlling governor of that state and had the untimate influence over when the counting stopped, it could not be seen as fair.

After the election, when all the votes were counted slowly and properly, Gore had more. However, by then it was too late.

If Bush had been Mugabwe, we would all have been up in arms saying his election wasn't acceptable, but as he was seen as not that different from Gore, we let it pass. It doesn't mean the election was fair.

Rainbow, I thought we were talking about Zimbabwe, but you seem to be insisting on an argument over global consistency. What do you want people to do? Say "Oh it's really bad over there in Zimbabwe, but because China and Indonesia are in such a mess, lets mute our commentary on this", or alternatively, "let's take this opportunity now to take pot-shots at almost every other bad nation on the planet, and eliminate overnight any possibility we might have to influence them in the future".

If governments had infinite resources and infinite power to really change countries with populations of hundreds of millions of people, I'm sure they would do something. Until then it is reasonable to pick your battles carefully. Zimbabwe is in the British sphere of influence, and it is better to address a local wrong than to throw your hands in the air and do nothing. And I strongly believe that this is a wrong, and that it stands on its own as a wrong, without necessarily having to bring in other wrongs around the globe into the argument.

You are right in one way though. Life sucks for an awful lot of people on this planet. But the only way the global situation is going to be improved is for governments to influence politics over the longer term, and to encourage democracy and freedom of speech in these countries through dialogue.

But in the end are we not just attempting to impose our world view on them?

I respect countries like South Africa opinion on this. After all they share a border and probably a lot of culture with Zimbabwe and are in a much better position to judge the situation for real than us.

In the end we got our current 'democratic' state by evolution over hundreds of years. There was a long time when there were Rotten Boroughs and the like in the UK. I think it would be more reasonable to accept that 'fair' democracy will evolve in the long run in countries like Zimbabwe than to expect them to adopt an identical form of democracy to the West in less than 20 years. Particularly as we haven't made ourselves entirely popular there over the last century or two. Perhaps they might consider us hypocrites?

I'm not trying to justify Mugabe's behaviour or treatment of his people but in the end I think it's not really any of our business.

But in the end are we not just attempting to impose our world view on them?

I respect countries like South Africa opinion on this. After all they share a border and probably a lot of culture with Zimbabwe and are in a much better position to judge the situation for real than us.

In the end we got our current 'democratic' state by evolution over hundreds of years. There was a long time when there were Rotten Boroughs and the like in the UK. I think it would be more reasonable to accept that 'fair' democracy will evolve in the long run in countries like Zimbabwe than to expect them to adopt an identical form of democracy to the West in less than 20 years. Particularly as we haven't made ourselves entirely popular there over the last century or two. Perhaps they might consider us hypocrites?

I'm not trying to justify Mugabe's behaviour or treatment of his people but in the end I think it's not really any of our business.

But in the end are we not just attempting to impose our world view on them?

I respect countries like South Africa opinion on this. After all they share a border and probably a lot of culture with Zimbabwe and are in a much better position to judge the situation for real than us.

In the end we got our current 'democratic' state by evolution over hundreds of years. There was a long time when there were Rotten Boroughs and the like in the UK. I think it would be more reasonable to accept that 'fair' democracy will evolve in the long run in countries like Zimbabwe than to expect them to adopt an identical form of democracy to the West in less than 20 years. Particularly as we haven't made ourselves entirely popular there over the last century or two. Perhaps they might consider us hypocrites?

I'm not trying to justify Mugabe's behaviour or treatment of his people but in the end I think it's not really any of our business.

Orcus, good points - I think that anything that Britain does internationally often runs the risk of being labelled hypocritical, but does that mean it should do nothing because of this? There are international agreements, such as the UN declaration of human rights, that it can refer to in cases such as this. I'm challenging the assumption here that, so long as a country keeps to its own back-yard, it can do whatever it likes there. I think there are precedents, such as in Rwanda and Bosnia, where the international community should have taken action, and shamefully, didn't do anything until the damage had been done.

Um, but didn't Zimbabwe have a "proper" democracy until this point? I think the point here is that, while Mugabe was popular as a war hero and fighter against apartheid he got elected fair and square. However, now that the countries economy is shot and he is no longer popular he has changed the rules to stay in power. So Zimbabwe is not evolving democracy, if anything it is de-evolving it. Not sure that there is a lot the west can do sadly, as Mugabe can just trot out the colonialism line. Hopefully South Africa or Nigeria will have words with him, but sadly I doubt it.

It looks to me like Mugabe has rigged the election somehow. He is by no means hated by everyone in Zimbabwe, but he went to a lot of lengths to prevent supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change from voting. That doesn't suggest a man who expected to win.

Bush's election victory in the US was contentious but in the end legal by US law. It's up to the US people to change the law if it needs changed. Comparing his opportunistic manipulating in Florida with Mugabe's physical attacking and intimidation of supporters of the MDC is kind of silly.

Regarding Indonesia (which some people have mentioned here) the dictator Sukhatu is no longer in power and Indonesia no longer controls East Timor, which was granted it's independence following a referendum. Going on about "shipping weapons to Indonesia to kill people in East Timor" is a bit out of date. We shouldn't have been giving them anything whilst they were occupying East Timor, but anyway

I agree that evolving into a parliamentary democracy over hundreds of years and expecting one to spring-up in Zimbabwe in a few decades is naive. The thing is, the Zimbabweans (spelling?) have proved they have both the opinion and the desire required for people ready for such a system. It's up to us and the (sadly, few) democracies in Africa to help them achieve it.

For the record all but one of the African sets of observers are saying Mugabe won. MAybe not fair and square, but he won. There is a danger of believing just because he used deplorable tactics that he hasn't the support.

The UK gov seemed so eager to condem him before the election and before the reports of those in the field on the outcome. Whilst it may not be an election run in the same way as the European/USA style those from South Africa and other African states report it as a Mugabe victory.

CH

He may well have got the most votes. The thing is, his goons attacked anyone actively drumming up support for or working for the MDC. If someone acted like that in a Western democracy nobody would be willing to accept the result as fair.

no, instead the "civilised" world use money instead of violence, corporate corruption instead of personal bribery, and resort to spurious legal challenges if things don't go right.

CH

The UK government had some reason to condemn him - he kicked out all the EU observers, banned the BBC from reporting in the country, and there were loads of people crossing the borders showing marks of physical attacks because they were MDC supporters. By the way it wasn't just the UK - it was the whole EU that called "foul" before the election had finished. Botswana have also called "foul" since the election, and Norway, the only Europeans allowed to remain, also have condemned the election.

I am interested in your comment about the "civilised" world rigging elections when there was a danger of the ruling party losing. Most modern democracies take voting, and the freedom to vote, very seriously, despite what you might try to allege here. Whatever a government might do to promote their people before an election, it still comes down to one-man, one-vote in almost every "civilised" country. It's ridiculous to make a comparison between the US or anywhere else in the developed world, and the present situation in Zimbabwe.

I work with a Zimbabwean. I made the mistake of saying something along the lines of "what now then?", assuming that she would accept the western view that things have not been done quite right. Whoops.

Amongst a section of the worlds population it is clear that the opinion is that there has been an election and Robert Mugabe has won it. Simple as that!

PP

I think it might be interesting to point out that the MDC have also been guilty of using strong arm tactics during the election.
The picture is rarely as black and white as it seems from the news.

Yeh, it sounds like there wasn't any box stuffing or anything, so about half the population did vote for Mugabe. Its just the fact that the other half who didn't want to vote for him were systematically excluded, by reductions in polling stations and such. I suppose the question is, if the West wants to promote free democratic elections is it best to do so by interfering when things don't go exactly correctly, or should we aplaud the fact that there was an election at all, which allowed a large section of the population to get the man they wanted. Hmmm.