This is Zimbabwe has a call to action ahead of the SADC meeting this Saturday, and provides contact details that can be used if you’d like to make your thoughts known to the organisation ahead of the summit. Please make use of them.

From the “I hate to say I told you so, but…” department, Thursday’s Zimbabwe Independent has details of Nelson Mandela’s warnings to Mugabe about the dangers of standing for re-election:

Details obtained from sources in Zimbabwe and South Africa showed Mandela had contacted Mugabe by telephone via his advisors on March 30 — on the very same day that Zanu PF spokesmen misleadingly claimed Mugabe was endorsed as the candidate for this year’s poll — to advise him to quit before the election.
[...]
Mandela reportedly indicated that his advice was also the view of a number of influential African National Congress (ANC) leaders. ANC stalwart Tokyo Sexwale supported Mandela’s initiative. Sexwale, then an ANC presidential hopeful, has said on several occasions Mugabe has made his contribution to Zimbabwe and should leave office.

There’s plenty of evidence that Mugabe and Mandela have never really seen eye-to-eye, so it’s probably no surprise that he didn’t take the advice. To say that’s a shame would be a monumental understatement.

Added a captcha to the comments field, and removed the need for a visitor’s first comment to be moderator-approved.

Looks like the SADC summit is going to be worth watching after all, as according to the BBC both Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai are due to attend.  What I wouldn’t give to see the two of them in the same room…

Which begs the question:  Has Morgan been invited, or is he simply crashing the party as the duly elected President of Zimbabwe (as MDC fully believe he is)?  If he’s invited, does that mean that SADC are preparing to publicly back him, or are they hoping a deal can be reached behind closed doors?  The events of this weekend are looking ever more interesting by the day.

Of course, “interest” is something you can only have from a safe distance.  On the ground, things are far more serious.

Oh yes – lest anyone accuse Gordon Brown and the British Government of standing by and doing nothing during such hard times. They’ve taken an important stand that will no doubt convince the world that they stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Zimbabwean people.

They’ve refused visas to an under-15 cricket team, who were due to transit through the UK on their way to a tournament in the Caribbean.

Pointless, heartless, and vindictive. Way to go, Gordon.

UPDATE: CricInfo have updated their story to add Foreign & Commonwealth Office claims that, while they were aware the team were hoping to travel, they have no trace of visas actually being applied for.  More here.

I get the distinct impression that Judge Tendai Uchena is waiting for someone else to solve his problem. As the unfortunate soul who ended up handling the MDC’s petition for an order forcing ZEC to release the Presidential election results, you can almost picture him looking around desperately for a way to avoid having to give the order, aware that Zanu-PF will be metaphorically looking over his shoulder in a rather menacing way. After hearing arguments yesterday, he reiterated his decision to treat the case urgently and declared…

“I am of the view that I exert myself to study the submissions, I should be ready with a judgement on Monday.”

That’s 8 days after this “urgent” petition was first brought, and 16 days after Zimbabweans voted. It’s probably no coincidence, though, that SADC are meeting to discuss Zimbabwe on Saturday – and Uchena may be hoping he’ll be saved the trouble of making a ruling if there’s suitably severe criticism of Mugabe at that event. Levy Mwanawasa has already been critical of Mugabe, comparing Zimbabwe to the Titanic in the past, but of the SADC’s other members, we don’t know who’ll say what. Jacob Zuma may be critical, but he doesn’t yet represent the South African government; other SADC leaders still seem to be in the RG Mugabe Fan Club.

All this is taking time, time that – if the collected news reports from Zim are anything to go on – Zanu-PF are using to quietly beat enough opposition support into acquiescence to give themselves a chance of winning the still-hypothetical second round vote.

There’s still some optimism on the ground, though – Zimbabwe Today reports one persistent rumour that’s doing the Harare rounds:

I want to mention one other rumour that persists here in Harare. This says that, despite the military involvement in the countrywide violence, as revealed in the 200-strong list, see above, the top army brass are actually pursuing another agenda entirely.

It is thought that a group of heavyweight military commanders and politburo chiefs, led by the brooding figure of retired general Solomon Mujuru, have presented to Mugabe a plan for a temporary sharing of power in Zimbabwe, under a government of national unity.

The plan would entail Mugabe remaining president for six months, with Tsvangirai as vice president and Simba Makoni, the Zanu-PF rebel candidate, as prime minister. Eventually Tsvangirai would take over the top job, with Mugabe moving into graceful retirement.

If MDC truly believe they’ve won the vote outright, though – and I still believe they have – I can’t really see them settling for second place…

Finally, Zimbabwe’s regional neighbours are starting to weigh in on the issue – and they don’t seem to be agreeing with Thabo Mbeki’s assessment that the situation was “manageable”. First out of the blocks was ANC leader Jacob Zuma:

“I think keeping the nation in suspense, and as you know, the Zimbabwean issue has become an international issue – it is almost keeping the international community in suspense – I don’t think it augurs very well.”

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, currently chairman of the SADC, has also called an emergency meeting of the organisation for this Saturday to discuss the issue. Both Zuma and Mwanawasa were on the itinerary of Morgan Tsvangirai’s current whistle-stop tour of the region, which he’s using to drum up support for the MDC. He’s also been to Botswana and is due to visit Mozambique.

MDC and ZEC have also been in court today, arguing their cases for and against a court order forcing the release of the Presidential election results. ZEC lawyers have argued that…

“The collation has to be finished, the verification has to be finished. The order they [MDC] sought is so unreasonable. This application must be dismissed, it ought never to have been made.

“It would be dangerous in my view to give an order because it might not be complied with … because of outside exigencies which the party [ZEC] will be unable to control.”

I don’t think it’s remotely unreasonable to expect the results of an election to be released within 11 days of the vote, but there you go. That second paragraph also sounds a bit threatening, don’t you think? Also bear in mind that Zanu-PF have a long history of ignoring court orders when they aren’t in their favour…

It’s not thought the court will rule until later in the week, but to be honest, I suspect concerted condemnation from the countries bordering Zimbabwe will have more effect than any court order. There’s still no guarantee we’ll get either…

Quite often it seems that every time someone posts a humourous look at the situation in Zimbabwe, a comment soon appears berating the poster for making fun of what is a deadly serious situation.  But humour is one of the mind’s great coping mechanisms – make fun of a situation and you can let off steam in a harmless way; allow yourself to stew inside and that pressure may find other, less harmless outlets.  So let the humour flow unabated.

In that mould, here are two ways to let off some of that steam.  First up is Simbabwe, a game for Mac OS X that describes itself thusly:

Welcome to Simbabwe, where the property is already owned and the houses built and you compete to burn and dispossess them. Bounce around the map plundering farms, denying grain silos to opposition supporters and robbing the community chest.

Easy to play but hard to escape from, Simbabwe is a richly detailed, evolved board game with unscrupulous AI and editorial cartoon graphics.

Rig elections, gaol opponents and taunt the Commonwealth as you use intimidation and stooges to create a mugaboly on power.

Compete with Robert Mugabe, Canaan Banana, Cecil Rhodes and Sir Godfrey Huggins to earn a place on the all-time EU travel ban list!

All in very bad taste, I’m sure you’ll agree.  In reality, it’s just Monopoly in reverse – and probably the closes we’ll ever get to a genuine Zimbabwean edition of the game (we always had to make do with the South African edition – make me an offer for Eloffstraat, anyone?).  You can get it here, if you’re interested.

Yesterday’s Cape Times also had a look at a hypothetical Politburo meeting, with the Zanu-PF leadership trying to decide what to do about those election results that they’re too scared to announce:

The Zanu PF politburo gathered in sombre mood.

“I thought the elections were free and fair,” said one member. “SADC promised us they would be declared free and fair even before they took place.”

“They would have been free and fair if we had won them,” said another. “But there was a terrible mistake and the MDC won them, so they weren’t free and fair after all.”

“Can’t we count the votes again?” suggested a third. “You know, two for us and one for them, like we used to.”

“We’ve already done that, and they still win,” said the first. “We can’t go on counting the votes over and over again.”

“What was the result exactly?” asked a general.

“Shhh,” said a police chief, “you’ll send him into a rage again. You’ve seen how he can’t bear to hear it. The main thing is we have declared it to be classified information, and anyone found guilty of releasing it will be tried for treason. If those figures get into the wrong hands, life in Zimbabwe could change for all of us.”

Everyone shuddered at the thought.

“But when will we release the figures?” persisted the general. “We can’t keep them secret for ever.”

“We’ll keep them secret until we have another election, with better figures,” said the police chief.

“I know what,” said an administration secretary, “we’ll just invert the figures. We’ll give 72% to the president instead of the 27% he really got … ”

There was a roar of anger from the head of the table, and the secretary had to dodge a flying water bottle.

“Sorry, boss, I meant the 27% that those crooks in the electoral commission said you got. And we’ll give 35% to Tsvangirai instead of the 53% we all know he didn’t get.”

“Will Mbeki fall for that?” asked the general.

“He’ll fall for anything,” said the police chief. “Aziz Pahad can explain to him it was all a misrepresentation by the media.”

“I don’t know why we bother to have elections,” said a senior politburo member. “Unless you have pre-arranged to win them, what’s the point?”

One man who had kept very quiet finally spoke up. “The fact is, the people have expressed their will in this election,” he said.

“The people’s will se ma se …,” retorted the senior politburo member rudely, only he said it in Shona.

“The main thing is to protect our land from the whites,” said the administration secretary.

“But we’ve chased nearly all the whites off it,” said the quiet man. “And kyk hoe lyk ons nou.” Only he said this in Shona, too.

“But they’ll come back under Tsvangirai,” argued the police chief.

“If they do, maybe we’ll get some food production going again,” said the quiet man.

There was a bellow of fury from the head of the table, and guards quickly dragged the quiet man out of the room. When they shut the door, you could hardly hear his screams of pain.

“With luck,” said the police chief, “we can get him to confess he rigged the whole election.”

Remember: Laughter is the best medicine…

The contents of this news report likely won’t surprise anyone – everyone’s been suspecting for a few days now that Zanu-PF would revert to form, and so it’s begun. All this despite some apparent pressure from a usually effective persauder to get Bob to stand aside gracefully (scroll down past the court stuff) – I think someone there has realised the risks of pushing this too far.  Incidentally, Judge Uchena has agreed to hear the MDC’s petition as a “matter of urgency” – so given the current urgent pace of events, it’ll be heard sometime after the outstanding challenges to the 2002 poll results.  I’ll put my cynicism away now.

There’s been some criticism of Morgan Tsvangirai’s decision to visit South Africa when some would rather he stayed at home and showed some “real leadership”, the view being that by letting the situation drag on without any real protest, the MDC are at risk of allowing their win to be stolen again.  Personally, I’m not sure that calling for people to hit the streets – as some now want to see – would be a good idea (see previous comments about giving Mugabe an excuse to crack down), but either way Zimbabwe Today has a look at why the visit could work in the MDC’s favour.  The key seems to be Jacob Zuma, who holds far more forthright views on the ZImbabwean situation than Thabo Mbeki seems to (see Briggs Bomba’s piece at Kubatana – paragraph 7 onwards – for some thoughts on the “quiet diplomacy” approach), but whose involvement may not be without risk.

Finally for this piece, it’s over to the man who would (or should) be President, who puts his thoughts on paper over at Zimbabwe Metro.

Of all the websites I’ve uncovered while trying to keep up with events in Zim over the past week or so, none has impressed me quite as much as Sokwanele – their archive of the results by constituency is the only place with anything even close to the level of detail you get from UK elections, while their blog, This Is Zimbabwe, has been home to some truly great pieces showing how people are feeling ‘on the ground’.

So I make no apologies for linking to them again, this time to their Message to the Zimbabwean People posted earlier today.  10 simple facts about events of the past week, and two requests for how Zimbabweans of all backgrounds should behave until the results are finally announced:

1. Begin to break down the barriers between us
Mugabe has done his best to divide our nation, to turn us against each other and build suspicion and hatred. Now is the time to challenge those lies and begin to heal and build unity. Smile at those who you previously feared: the police and security forces. Show them in your behaviour and attitude that the future is positive and that we all stand to benefit.

2. Keep all of our spirits up
Do your best to remind those around you that just because Zanu PF and Robert Mugabe are thrashing about like a fish on a hook, it doesn’t mean that we have lost. Support each other when we begin to let go of hope.

Never forget: we have won.

Essential reading for any Zimbabwean.