By Ntama Bahati , Published May 30, 2008

To this day Robert Mugabe is determined to remain in power at all cost.   His strategy is to rule by force, particularly with violence against those who supported his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai during the first presidential election round on March 29, 2008.   As June 27, the run-off day approaches, he continues using intimidation to discourage people from exercising their right to vote.   Mugabe’s ruling party, the Zimbabwe National African Union- Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) restricts people’s freedom of expression and the information available to them whereby people have no access to printed newspapers or objective electronic media coverage other than the pro-Mugabe’s.  Like any dictatorial regime, controlling public life of the citizens is central to keeping power in the hands of a few.   ZANU-PF has extended its violence against the opposition supporters to the countryside, causing massive displacement of the people in order to prevent them from reaching the polling stations where they are registered to vote.  In some cases people are told, without any explanation, not to show up to polling stations; a warning about what to expect on election day and after if Mugabe loses.  Additionally, while the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) is supposed to run the election process, members of the army have been enrolled as election officers, the same army that is spreading fear countrywide in favor of Mugabe.   Some of election officers who served on March 29 have been detained and are waiting to face charges, others have been forced to leave their homes or have been killed. 

Another significant challenge faced in the run-off is finding both election officers and observers .  A process of reaccreditation of every observer, local and foreign even those who served on March 29, has been required by the government, a process that has been denying accreditation to many election observers.  This raises concerns about the transparency and the fairness of the election.  The only observers who have been approved are those from the Southern African Development Community (SADC).  Compared to the number of polling stations across Zimbabwe, SADC observers alone cannot provide the monitoring needed to ensure fairness and transparency.  

Zimbabweans, who want to free themselves from the oppression and exploitation of one of their own, Robert Mugabe, who once called himself the liberator, continue to pay enormously with their lives in the country and abroad.   On top of the victims of starvation and a constant crumbling economy, more than 50 people have died in Zimbabwe since March 29 , and many more have been killed by South Africans in South Africa where the sought refuge running from the misery caused by Mugabe’s government.  One thing Zimbabweans long for is to see the end of Mugabe’s 27 years in public office, as primer minister from 1980-1987 then president to this day. 

There are some signs of hope despite the difficulties.  First, the opposition has the majority in the parliament for the first time as a result of the elections in March.  This means that if the president is incapacitated or dies, the parliament has constitutional right to elect a new president, and they would vote for a leader outside of the ruling party that has failed their nation.   Second, the acceptance of a run-off was an unthinkable scenario after Mugabe’s defeat.   With his military power, he could have silenced the opposition indefinitely.   We can only hope that he will abide to the rules of the democratic electoral process on June 27, 2008.