"Mash it up in-a Zimbabwe"

Robert Mugabe has proved himself so incompetent that he hasn't even been able to rig an election properly.

Last time these was an election in Zimbabwe, the results were released in under 24 hours. Of course Mugabe had “won” that election which by all account was hardly free and fair. This time around with all the dice loaded favour of Zanu-PF, Mugabe's party, it would appear that they have not been able to pull off a repeat of the fraud.

It has been confirmed that the opposition have won the parliamentary polls despite the ruling party attempting to “recount”... Hmmm! Anyway we are left with the absurd spectacle of the ruling party in Zimbabwe agreeing to a run-off presidential election before any results have been released in the presidential election.

After presiding over a disastrous land "redistribution" policy and taking a country once known as Africa's bread basket and turning it into an almost unimaginable 100,000% inflation economy it would appear that Mugabe's desire to have the semblance of a democratic mandate has been his undoing. We are at a crossroads now. Fear of prosecution will prevent a smooth transition but it will be nigh on impossible to explain away hanging on to power after losing in a process that he had sought to give him legitimacy. It will essentially be a "constitutional coup d'etat" (a term coined by the opposition in Zimbabwe) if Mugabe stays in power. We wait to see what the outcome is but the whole episode is a further proof that democratic processes can bring about just outcomes even in the most inhospitable and unexpected places.

One final word of warning: As an African I have seen and even participated in celebrations after the removal or death of a dictator only to see the new regime take up the baton of tyranny and often commit worse crimes and hold on to power tighter than the previous regimes. We all hope the Zimbabwean opposition bucks this trend but on this note also, we will wait to see what happens.