Well, the lede here has to be that both China and Russia vetoed sanctions on Zimbabwe. They claim that it is unacceptable “meddling” in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation.
The MDC and ZANU-PF have started negotiations on who negotiations should proceed, which has shades of negotiating on the shape of the table in the 1960s, though with the support of China and Russia (and South Africa which also voted against the sanctions), I rather imagine not much will come of all this.
Well, it looks like FIFA is weighing in on Zimbabwe and Mbeki’s support of Mugabe, as they are now making statements that seem to imply that the world cup may be moved because of “regional instability”.
As lame as it sounds, this may be the only thing to keep Mbeki from being Mugabe’s agent in this matter.
Still the news is generally not good with ZANU-PF planning to escalate the violence against the opposition.
As to negotiations, were are getting conflicting reports, and Tsvangirai has just denied that there are any talks in process.
Botswana has taken what I believe to be the proper stance, saying that they do not recognize Mugabe as president.
Interestingly, we have reports that Mugabe has been effectively sidelined by the 6 top members of the state security apparatus, and that they are more brutal than Mugabe.
We are also seeing increasing calls for sanctions, which, predicably, the Mugabe regime called racist.
The efforts of Blue America Political Action Committee et. al is getting local coverage in the Savannah Morning News.
Blue America PAC is dropping $40K-$50K on ads saying the Barrow is Bush’s, “rubber stamp”, and may also include radio and TV ads.
Give to Regina Thomas, a real Democrat. As of the last campaign finance report, Thomas had about $11K in the bank as compared to Barrow’s more than $1M, but the dynamics of the district, the primary voters are over 70% AA, make winning the primary a real possibility.
My guess is that this is just a ploy for attention, but we know how my accurate my predictions are.
Polling indicates that he will take a roughly equal amount from both Coleman and Franken.
This time, it’s the brothers Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, the wingnuttiest of the anti-Castro wingnuts, who appear to be vulnerable.
Remembering that undecided tend to break for the challenger 2:1 ratio:
Lincoln Diaz-Balart leads former Hialeah mayor Raul Martinez 41 percent to 37 percent in the poll, with 22 percent undecided. Mario Diaz-Balart leads Joe Garcia, former chairman of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, 44 percent to 39 percent, with 17 percent undecided.
Margin of error is 5% which puts both candidates within the margin of error.
I would also say that the undecides are likely to break even harder against them than the normal trend, as the Diaz-Balart’s are the unelected royalty of the right wing Cuban emigre community, and that community is likely already fully plumbed, while the undecideds are likely non-Cuban Hispanics and whites who have increasingly become, particularly since the Elian affair, disgusted with the anti-Castro whack job community.
Well, it’s not getting any better.the government is “embracing and extending” the idea of using food aid as a weapon, even after the election.
The Guardian now has hidden camera video of voter intimidation, if you want to check it out.
Of course, Mbeki is still trying to be the mediator, even when it is unbelievably clear that he is no where near impartial in this matter.
Meanwhile, the US is pushing for sanctions against the government of Zimbabwe and its leaders, including an arms embargo and Freezing foreign assets of Zimbzbwean leaders.
We do have a potential promising development, a proposal in which Mugabe would remain president, but retain essentially no power, but this appears to be confused, with Mugabe apparently insisting that negotiations occur at the presidential offices, which would appear to cede that to Mugabe before the first words were said.
Here is a rundown of where the Congressional elections are sitting, note that the races in red are moving toward Repuplicans, the other ones are moving toward Democrats.
Likely Democratic to Lean Democratic: PA-11, FL-08
Likely Republican to Lean Republican: FL-21, PA-03, WV-02
Solid Republican to Likely Republican: AL-03, CA-46, FL-09, FL-18, IA-04, ID-01, IN-03, KY-02, MN-02, NC-10, NE-02, NJ-05, NV-02, OH-07, PA-05, PA-15, TX-07, TX-10, VA-05, VA-10, WY-AL
Toss Up to Lean Democratic: NY-13, NY-25
Happy dance.
I’ve mentioned that Joseph Bruno, the Republican New York State Senate leader is stepping down, and I suggested that he was doing so because he believed that he would lose the majority in the next election.
Well, another shoe has dropped, giving him another reason to retire: The FBI raided his office just before he announced his retirement.
Hoocoodanode?
As is expected, the African Union studiously avoided any criticism of Mugabe, though it did call for a unity government.
This is to be expected. After all many of these leaders are in place through electoral processes that are similar to what happened in Zimbabwe, though obviously less extreme.
The AU is hoping for something similar to what happened in Kenya, where the person who stole the election remained in power but had to throw some patronage positions to the oppositions.
Meanwile, Tsvangirai has declined to negotiate a junior position in a unity government. He is saying that conditions are not right for talks.
This is not surprising, considering that violence and murder are still going on.
Additionally, I believe that Tsvangirai is explicitly rejecting any involvement in the negotiations by Thabo Mbeki, which is not surprising, since Mbeki is Mugabe’s butt boy.
The EU is calling Mugabe’s government illegitimate, and demanding that » Tsvangirai lead any unity government, though, unsurprisingly South Africa is rejecting both.
An indication that the instability may spread is the fact that Botswana has sealed off its border with Zimbabwe.
It’s unclear whether this is because it intends to sever relations, or if it is worried about refugee flows, or both.
You can read the story. They claim that there are issues of risks to the soldiers and diplomatic repurcussions, but I think that the real reason that they are holding off from authorizing special forces to try to find and apprehend/kill bin Laden is that they want it closer to the November elections.
Well, Officials: Mugabe has won his phony election, and has been sworn in.
It also that Tsvangirai has hardened his stance a bit, saying that there will be no unity government with the MDC as a junior partner.
Bush is calling for more sanctions, but they are not enough. If Bush were to threaten sanctions against banks with subsidiaries doing business in Zimbabwe, the cash that the ZANU-PF uses to reward loyalists, and Mugabe would be out in a week.
Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu has declared that the “international community has the right now to override the sovereignty argument of the country.”
As a first step, he would shut down commerical air transport from Zimbabwe, which would mean that, “Mugabe and his sidekicks would not be able to — as they are now — escape the rigors of their own policies.”
And it appears that it’s not enough that Mugabe and his thugs forced Tsvangirai out of the race, that they are now using violence to force people into the ballot booths:
In some other suburbs of Harare, the capital, residents said they had been rounded up Thursday night, forced to chant pro-Mugabe slogans until daybreak and then force-marched to the polls. They were told to copy the serial numbers off their ballots so it could be confirmed later that they had voted for their 84-year-old president.
(emphasis mine)
The interesting thing is that I think that I’m more disgusted with South African President Thabo Mbeki than I am with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
As near as I can figure out, Mbeki is Mugabe’s butt boy because he is afraid that what is happening in Zimbabwe, where the trade union movement became the basis for a popular political movement, will happen in South Africa, where the trade unions have become increasingly hostile to the ANC and its IMF driven cheap labor policies.
So now, the Republicans are blocking paying doctors through Medicare in order to protect their HMO friends:
But Senate Republicans (and President Bush) don’t like the way the bill finds money for docs by cutting subsidies to Medicare Advantage, the privately administered Medicare plans.
If they needs subsidies, then, “Medicare Advantage, the privately administered Medicare plans”, are less efficient than big government, and hence are government waste, which should be abolished.
The cloture vote failed 58:40, and it needs 60 votes. Kennedy was not there because he has cancer, and McCain was not there because he doesn’t give a damn about doing his job as Senator.
When Republicans complain about earmarks, they are looking at amounts that are in total less than 1/10 of this.
I hope that the Democrats pound them mercilessly on this until election day.
We are getting some decent news now, specifically that MDC Secretary Tendai Biti was released on bail pending his treason charge, and Mugabe is suggesting negotiations following the runoff election.
Honestly, I don’t see Mugabe backing down until he is dead or in custody though, particularly since he is insisting that the election, which he has turned into a bloody farce, should be held on schedule.
I’m not sure why Morgan Tsvangirai is walking away from his earlier call for armed peace keepers, but he is juxtaposing this with a 24-hour deadline to enter into good faith negotiations with him.
I think that Tsvangirai may be playing to Mugabe’s allies in the ZANU-PF, with comments to the effect that Mugabe is “self-destructing”.
The implication here is that if he does, then the rest of the ruling structure is at risk too.
It also appears that South Africa’s ANC has finally be forced into doing the right thing, as they are finally condemning what is going on there.
My guess is that Nelson Mandela’s calling the events in Zimbabwe a, “Tragic Failure of leadership”, left them no other choice.
It turns out that Tsvangirai’s withdrawal from the runoff has, if anything, intensified ZANU-PF thuggery.
Of course, in response, you have the African National Congress coming out in favor of doing nothing about all this. Increasingly, I believe that there are elements in the ANC who believe that Mugabe’s fate will be theirs one day, and so they will support him to the bloody end.
Morgan Tsvangirai is calling for international isolation and armed peace keepers before a fair election can be held.
I will say that when the most effective action taken on all this so far is Queen Elizabeth II stripping Mugabe of his knighthood, you know that the regional and international response is pretty pathetic.
Barack Obama has condemned Mugabe, and has talked with Tsvangirai on the phone.
Truth be told, this surprises me.
I don’t think that there is really any electoral advantage in all this.
The most prominent supporter of this is nepotism beneficiary Bill Kristol, but nutjob Daniel Pipes is saying this too.
They couch it by saying that this “might” happen, but they really lobbying the Bush Administration to bomb Iran.
What’s more, I think that they are specifically lobbying for bombing Iran just before the general election.
In a New York Times OP/ED, Peter Godwin muses on what to do about the brutal war that Mugabe is waging on his own people.
He notes that the international community should delegitimize the Mugabe regime, and take steps to recognize the government in exile.
Then he has his moment of genius:
Of course, South Africa could use its economic power to draw Mr. Mugabe’s rule to an end in weeks rather than months. Yet Mr. Mbeki has steadfastly refused to act, providing a protective cloak for Mr. Mugabe’s repression. And just a few weeks ago, even as opposition members were being tortured, Mr. Mbeki visited Zimbabwe, allowing himself to be garlanded at the airport and displayed on state-run TV with a broadly grinning Mr. Mugabe. In the United Nations Security Council, where South Africa currently has a seat, Mr. Mbeki has opposed attempts to put the political situation in Zimbabwe on the agenda.
If Mr. Mbeki’s cost-benefit calculus has been such that he hasn’t seen it necessary to take tougher action, perhaps it’s time to change that calculus. Perhaps, for example, now is not the time for you to book a safari to South Africa. Or for you, or any institution that manages your funds, to make new investments in the country.
Most important, there is the FIFA soccer World Cup, for which South Africa is to act as host in 2010. That may seem like a long way off, but South Africa is already investing huge amounts both financially and politically, for what is supposed to be its triumphal coming-out party. Maybe Zimbabwe should become to the South Africa-hosted World Cup what Tibet has been to the Beijing Olympics — the pungent albatross that spoils every press conference and mars every presentation with its insistent odor.
Perhaps it’s time to share the Zimbabweans’ pain, to help persuade Mr. Mbeki to bear down on its source by threatening to grab the world’s soccer ball and take our games elsewhere.
I don’t follow soccer, so I was unaware that the World Cup would be in South Africa.
This is brilliant, and people should start lobbying FIFA now to change the venue.
Morgan Tsvangirai says that he will leave the Dutch embassy shortly, and the UN Security Council is now saying that the violence has made the runoff election a sham.
Needless to say, it does not help that the African National Congress has explicitly rejected any international intervention, though the Congress of South African Trade Unions has called Mugabe’s regime illegitimate.
As Will Bunch says, the only way to get a meaningful intervention there is to find massive oil reserves, so perhaps the MDC needs to start drilling.
This time, it’s Republican New York State Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, who has announced his retirement.
The ‘Phants have a 1 seat majority in the state senate, and I think that Bruno knows that this will change and that the Senate will go Democratic in 2008.
Hopefully, a redistricting at the state senate level will follow, because that body is ridiculously gerrymandered, since the Dems will then hold both state houses and the governor’s mansion.
While he has not formally requested asylym, it’s clear that Tsvangirai believes that his life is in danger, which is why he’s sleeping there.
We also have Thabo Mbeki traveling to Zimbabwe, to make a “final plea” to Mugabe about doing the right thing. We can be sure that Mbeki’s effort will be ineffectual, and will be full of enabling language. That is what he’s done for the past 10 years.