Monday, March 31, 2008

Elections in Zim now tied . . . ?

Funnily enough latest 'official' rather delayed figures show they're . . . Er . . . Neck and neck!

Ooooh . . . Don't suppose any Kenyans have a slight deja vu feeling right now?



Sent from my BlackBerry®

6 comments:

aims said...

Yikes!

Anonymous said...

Reports of heavy police force in trucks in the opposition strongholds are coming in. The Oppositon is said to have a plan B if Mugabe does a Kibaki.
The cancer has spread and we need a massive chain saw to chop it off.

Anonymous said...

Kenya is Not Zimbabwe!

kenyanentrepreneur on Mar 31st 2008

I’ve been listening to the coverage of the elections in Zimbabwe and I can’t understand why anyone is trying to compare the situation in Zimbabwe to the situation in Kenya!

* Zimbabwe’s economy has all but collapsed; Kenya’s hasn’t.
* Zimbabwe has the highest rate of inflation in the world at 100,000%; Kenya doesn’t.
* 80% of Zimbabweans are unemployed; This is not the case in Kenya (even under Moi, Kenya’s economy never collapsed to the extent that Zimbabwe’s has).

Kibaki is not Mugabe. I know the anti-Kibaki forces will try and compare Mugabe to Kibaki, but the fact remains that Kibaki has been a competent steward of Kenya’s economy for the five years he has been president. In fact, Kibaki has done more in his 5 years as president than Moi ever did in his 24 years as president (at least on the economic front). This fact is indisputable.

I’ve often said that dictatorial governments are acceptable as long as their stewardship of the economy is competent. Mugabe’s problems began when the economy in Zimbabwe collapsed around 2000. Had Mugabe managed to kick out those mzungu’s from their farms without damaging the larger economy, he would have become a hero to many Africans. I for one don’t feel sorry for those mzungu’s. The land never belonged to them. They stole it violently from the Africans and they should all have been deported back to their home country of Britain. It’s too bad that Mugabe’s “plan” did not work out and black Zimbabweans ended up suffering.

When Mugabe took over power in 1980 he deployed the 5th brigade, known as Gukurahundi, which killed over 20,000 Ndebele people. 20,000 dead! how many people have died in Kenya? 1500? in a country of 35 million that is not a lot of people. The world said nothing to Mugabe when he killed those Ndebelele’s. Partly because the dead were Africans, but mostly because the Zimbabwean economy was doing well at the time. It’s only when those wazungu’s started getting kicked out of their farms did the “world” start noticing. I really wish Mugabe’s “plan” would have worked out, but since it didn’t, he naturally became a pariah.

When will Africans ever learn that if you are going to be a dictator you better make sure the economy is growing. The model for Africa are countries like the United Arab Emirates and Singapore, not western style democracies like Sweden and Norway.

The international press is always trying to lump all of Africa’s dilemma’s into one bowl and they are often not the same.

Once the economy collapses, you are pretty much finished. It happened to Moi, it may happen to Mugabe and the next big one to go down will be the president of Equatorial Guinnea (Teodoro Obiang). Obiang is truly an idiot. All that oil money and a very low population (at about half a million people) and he’s refusing to copy the Dubai model. Someone will eventually overthrow him and kill him.

Why don’t African dictators understand the importance of economic vitality?

Anonymous said...

Hope opposition in Zimbabwe doesnt do a Raila/Ruto on Mugabe supporters..ie..ethnic cleansing.

The westhas issues with Kibaki because of his allienation to China; Period!! They like Raila coz of his allienation to the US.
Ruto? A lonely murderor...

Baba W 'n' M said...

MC, you have a virtual stalker.

nuttycow said...

I would imagine the Zimbos have a sense of deja vu too.

Fingers crossed