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June 27, 2008
The polls have opened in Zimbabwe. The result is no mystery, but the process is likely to be quite unpleasant.
Tsvangirai's name will be on the ballot, which is one question answered, but he's apparently telling supporters not to vote. And according to the ABC's report the statement he made in the Guardian asking for military intervention wasn't him at all, which is one of the problems we face trying to understand what's going on here - how can we know what's really going on with so much disinformation circulating?
I don't understand the history of this mess, or why Zimbabwe's neighbours do nothing, or why it's the Left's fault, or Malcolm Frazer's fault, or how it's possible for inflation to run at billions of percents, or how it's China's fault, or how come Zimbabwean diplomats are still sitting around in embassies around the joint, or how anyone can still have further sactions to think about imposing at this point, or what the ramifications for the region might be, or why Mugabe bothers having a poll at all, or why this doesn't count in the otherwise ubiquitous warr on terrorr.
The only thing I do understand is that this is not right. It is not OK for a leader to use a veneer of democracy in this way. Be a dictatorship or a monarchy or a pope or a feudal lord or a terminal liar if you want, but don't use democracy as a cover for something else.
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It is interesting that the morality of democracy has advanced so far that no government, whether liberal or authoritarian, thinks they have legitimacy without it not matter how coerced, repugnant or farcical the ballot process.
Another data point for Deniehy's and Harpers's thesis.