It was election time in Zimbabwe over the weekend, and since that’s where I’m from I’ve been paying close attention to the counts and release of results - with the main point of interest being, that there aren’t any yet. Polls closed on Saturday evening, by most accounts the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (responsible for the count and for announcing the official results) knew the outcomes by late Saturday, but it’s now Monday evening and so far there have been just 19 of 210 House of Assembly seats announced, and no word on the Senate, Presidential or local polls.

Background: Bob Mugabe has a long history of trying to rig polls - the last two elections were characterised by some pretty nasty violence against opposition candidates and supporters, and by legal challenges to the results, some of which are still waiting to be heard. This time around there wasn’t nearly so much violence, but there’s still the suspicion that Bob’s trying to rig the result, and the longer it takes for the results to be announced the more worried people get.

Here’s the thing, though: Bob’s not as popular as he used to be, to the point where even one of his own party, Simba Makoni, stood against him in the Presidential poll. What now seems to have happened is this: - Mugabe no longer knows who he can and can’t trust within his party, Zanu-PF - that’s made it difficult or impossible for him to rig the result in the usual way (ballot stuffing). Poll observers confirm that for the most part, what was going on at polling stations was above-board. - There’s also been such a swing against him that it may have been impossible to rig the result through stuffing alone. Rules for this election also require that votes are counted at the polling stations, with the results posted on the door - making it time-consuming but not impossible for other parties to do an unofficial tally of the vote themselves. Those tallies are showing a landslide for the opposition MDC, and they also mean that if they try to massage the figures at ZEC HQ in Harare, it won’t take long for someone to notice what’s happened.

So now Bob’s wondering what to do next. The ZEC are stalling, releasing only a few results at a time and being sure to make sure that the MDC and Zanu-PF are shown as tied. In the meantime:
- there are reports that the military instructed the ZEC on Sunday night to declare Mugabe the winner. If true, it’s quite telling that they haven’t done that yet.
- Bob is reportedly putting out soundings for what support he has left, with a view to deciding whether to concede or try and rig.
- other reports have Zanu-PF officials flitting in and out of emergency meetings at party headquarters in Harare, with deciding who gets to break the bad news to Bob one of the items on the agenda.
Add in speculation that he may already be considering getting out of the country, and you get one very confused and tense situation - and the longer the ZEC sit on the results, the more antsy MDC supporters (who on a fair vote would have won the previous two elections and don’t seem minded to be robbed a third time) are getting.

I still have family in Zim, so the current uncertainty worries me - but I’m also hopeful that, finally, Mugabe’s found himself in a corner he can’t bluster or cheat his way out of. With African politics you can never be sure than the new guy will be any better than the old, but given what Bob’s done to the country, Morgan Tsvangarai can’t be any <em>worse</em>. I just hope the uncertainty is resolved soon - and that if it doesn’t go the way the people clearly want it to, we don’t end up with another Kenya on our hands…