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GUEST: Briggs Bomba, Program Associate for Public Education and Mobilization at Africa Action

Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF party held a politburo meeting today to discuss the nation’s elections this past weekend as hundreds of pro-Mugabe war veterans took to the streets of Harare. Last Saturday, Zimbabweans went to the polls casting their votes in one of the most pivotal elections in the recent history of the African nation. The political atmosphere there has remained tense as official results in the three-way presidential race have not been released. Fearful of tampering, civil society organizations in Zimbabwe have signed onto a petition demanding that the Southern African Development Community and the African Union pressure for the release of all electoral results immediately. ZANU-PF party officials have said that current President Robert Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe for the past 28 years, is ready for a run-off election against his presumed Movement for Democratic Change rival Morgan Tsvangirai should presidential results declare the necessity of a second round. Tsvangirai’s MDC party has already claimed an outright presidential victory as official results from the Zimbabwean Electoral Commission has noted that opposition parties won a majority of seats in the parliament for the first time in three decades. If a run-off presidential election were to be deemed necessary, the contest would have to take place within the next three weeks.

Read Briggs Bomba’s blog from Zimbabwe at justzimbabwe.wordpress.com.

Special thanks to the Pacifica Radio Archives for the 1979 interview with Mugabe.