So then, what does the charm offensive look like?

The state’s daily mouthpiece – The Herald – today published a front page news article declaring that local government elections will be held in January 2008, two months ahead of proposed presidential and parliamentary elections. In the article, Local Government Minister, Ignatius Chombo was quoted as saying that all aliens born in Zimbabwe – who were not allowed to vote in the past – should register to vote. Apparently the beleaguered Registrar General’s office, notorious for its inability (or is it unwillingness) to update the voters’ roll , will be able to provide the necessary identity documents to facilitate their participation in next year’s local government elections.

Expect more of this kind of thing – the government making it look as though there is universal suffrage in Zimbabwe, all the while working with the other hand to keep the playing field steeply skewed to benefit Zanu PF. The party will make full use of the police and militia – paid out of revenues collected from the Zimbabwean people – to enforce their will. They will abuse their monopoly of all mass media outlets – radio, television and daily newspapers – to market their cause.

Expect the government to easily stay one step ahead of the opposition with small handouts like this to keep them frozen with indecision regarding participating in the 2008 election.

This entry was posted on May 7th, 2007 at 11:56 am by Brenda Burrell and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.