{"id":2515,"date":"2008-03-27T08:29:08","date_gmt":"2008-03-27T16:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/?p=2515"},"modified":"2008-03-27T08:31:01","modified_gmt":"2008-03-27T16:31:01","slug":"will-zimbabwes-elections-be-free-and-fair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/2008\/03\/27\/will-zimbabwes-elections-be-free-and-fair\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Zimbabwe&#8217;s Elections Be Free and Fair?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" border=0 src=\"graphics\/listen.gif\"\/> <ul class=\"inline-playlist playlist\" title=\"\"><li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.archive.org\/download\/DailyDigest032708\/2008_03_27_zimbabwe.mp3\">Listen to  this segment <\/a><\/li><\/ul>| <a href=\"http:\/\/www.archive.org\/download\/DailyDigest032708\/2008_03_27_uprising.MP3\">  the entire program<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" align=right width=45% src=\"http:\/\/d.yimg.com\/us.yimg.com\/p\/afp\/20080326\/capt.cps.mss34.260308185726.photo03.photo.default-512x341.jpg?x=400&#038;y=266&#038;sig=_IYmlo7AYaam2RsSyqiVTw--\" alt=\"Zimbabwe\" \/><em>GUESTS: Sinclair Roberts, political asylee from Zimbabwe, Gerald Lemelle, Executive Director of Africa Action<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Zimbabweans will head to the polls this Saturday in an historic election where President Robert Mugabe will seek to extend his 28-year rule. Capping a politically contentious year coupled with an economy wracked by the world\u2019s highest inflation rates, Zimbabwe&#8217;s upcoming elections may be the most pivotal since 1980, when Mugabe first came to power. The Zimbabwean government claims it is in full compliance with electoral guidelines set forth by the Southern African Development Community. Observer teams with the SADC recently concluded that Saturday\u2019s elections will be free and fair. But numerous international organizations such as Human Rights Watch have filed detailed reports questioning this. Independent presidential candidate Simba Makoni, has claimed that despite new electoral equal time laws, the state-run media has denied his campaign advertisements. Opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai\u2019s Movement for Democratic Change has noted multiple instances of harassment and intimidation by the state\u2019s security forces. General Constantine Chiwenga, commander of the Zimbabwean army, has already raised eyebrows earlier this month when he told a newspaper that should Mugabe not prevail, he is ready to overturn constitutional order. <\/p>\n<p>Read Briggs Bomba&#8217;s blog on Zimbabwe at <a href=\"http:\/\/justzimbabwe.wordpress.com\">justzimbabwe.wordpress.com<\/a>. For more information, visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.africaction.org\">www.africaction.org<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>| the entire program GUESTS: Sinclair Roberts, political asylee from Zimbabwe, Gerald Lemelle, Executive Director of Africa Action Zimbabweans will head to the polls this Saturday in an historic election where President Robert Mugabe will seek to extend his 28-year rule. Capping a politically contentious year coupled with an economy wracked by the world\u2019s highest [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-program"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}