Zimbabwe elections 2013

[Famous Mortimer]

Candidates:

Robert Mugabe (ZANU-PF): Will probably win.
Morgan Tsvangirai (MDC/MDC-T): Will probably come in second but maybe he'll unexpectedly win the third time round when no one's expecting it a la Sata in Zambia.
Dumiso Dabengwa (reformed ZAPU): interested to see how these guys do.
Welshman Ncube (MDC-Ncube/is that the same thing as MDC-Mutambara???)

[DC Al Fine]

Welshman NCube is the best politician name ever.

[jaichind]

Election is 7/31.  One thing that is different is ZAPU which merged with ZANU-PF back in 1980 broke away from ZANU-PF in the aftermath of 2008 elections and now will run its own candidate.  MDC which its two factions will run a candidate each.  I wonder if ZANU will pull away votes from ZANU-PF or be just another party that splits the anti-ZANU-PF vote.  Of course it does not really matter that much as this will only affect how much ballot stuffing ZANU-PF will have to do for Mugabe to win.

[Leftbehind]

Welshman NCube is the best politician name ever.

[minionofmidas]

Welshman NCube is the best politician name ever.

Does have a ring.

[Famous Mortimer]

Morgan Tsvangirai has been endorsed by Simba Makoni, who came in third last time, and by the ZANU-Ndoga party, who came in third in the two elections before that.

[Јas]

@zanu_pf is likely to be especially entertaining for the next month.

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https://twitter.com/zanu_pf/status/353895911790882819

[jaichind]

Tsvangirai is very unlikely to win.  Not due to outright ballot stuffing by ZANU-PF but by other factors that ZANU-PF already done to make this an election that is tilted to ZANU-PF.   First some MDC officials have been in involved in corruption which lost MDC moral ground in urban areas.  Second, the voter rolls are such so that it has as many as a million people who are dead or disappeared and about 29% of the 18-30 year olds are not registered.  So who gets to vote already puts ZANU-PF ahead, and power sharing has to some extend dented MDF's edge.

[Vosem]

@zanu_pf is likely to be especially entertaining for the next month.

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https://twitter.com/zanu_pf/status/353895911790882819

I haven't looked at that in far too long

"Don't worry our dear people, we are watching you"

"President Robert Mugabe has not received a traffic fine in over 25 years"

[Hatman 🍁]

Welshman NCube is the best politician name ever.

We all want to know; Does he "run like a Welshman"?

[Јas]

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https://twitter.com/zanu_pf/status/359381197257834497

You have been warned.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Expected ZANU-PF win, opposition restricted to strongholds etc. Particularly notable ZANU-PF gains in Masvingo for whatever reason. Despite some random and frankly surreal speculation to the contrary in some media outlets in recent weeks, Bulawayo remains very solid for the MDC.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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etc.

[jaichind]

One thing that is clear from this result is that ZANU-PF is for sure more popular than it was in 2008.  One can discuss how ZANU-PF rigs the results but it was rigging them back in 2008 as well and only got 46% of the vote and less than a majority of the seats after rigging.  Now it seems that ZANU-PF will win two-thirds of the seats.  Just like in 2008 Prez elections Mugabe won 43% of the vote in the first round and had to resort to massive violence to drive Tsvangirai out of the second round.  Now it seems that Mugabe will win by a large margin on the first round with obvious rigging but no mass violence.  So no matter waht ZANU-PF is more popular than back in 2008.  I dare say it is even possible that this year in a fair fight ZANU-PF might even win when in 2008 that was impossible. 

[Famous Mortimer]

Possibly the opposition is demoralized after MDC joined the ridiculous national unity government.