Redstate

By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Begone I Say And Let Us Have Done With You | Foreign Affairs | Robert Mugabe | Zimbabwe — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

On the Mugabe government's grudging admission that Robert Mugabe was outpolled in last month's presidential election:

After a month of incubation, any results from the electoral commission or the government have to be regarded with scepticism, analysts caution. Diplomats note that, conveniently for the regime, Mr Tsvangirai's figure was at the lowest end of a projection by independent monitors; Mr Mugabe's was at the highest end of his projected figure. The MDC has rejected the leaked figures as fraudulent, insisting its leader won an outright victory and suggesting the leak was designed to prepare the ground for a run-off.

But it is still striking that the presidential figures leaked by government concede that for the first time in his 28 years in power, Mr Mugabe suffered an electoral defeat.

"Probably they did want to do a bit of rigging but then found it harder than they hoped," said one regional diplomat. "The motives for having a recount and delaying the release were wholly impure but the result is clearly less corrupted than they would have wanted."

Remarkably, this constitutes tremendous progress in Zimbabwe.