nik newark

How to win an election in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is not a great place to be right now. Just about everyone aside from Robert Mugabe and his henchman believe that the upcoming elections have been compromised for two reasons:-
(a) Morgan Tsvangirai was unable to do any proper campaigning, as Robert Mugabe would kill him, and
(b) Morgan Tsvangirai's supporters were unable to express their support for him, again, as Robert Mugabe would kill them. This has led Morgan Tsvangirai to withdraw from the election campaign, exposing it for the mockery that it is.

However, it needn't have played out that way. Here are three easy ways that Robert Mugabe could have called a legitimate election and won, without threatening anyone.

1/ Rather than asking people to tick boxes next to names, ask them instead to write the name of the candidate they want to vote for. Morgan Tsvangirai is very difficult to spell, and most people won't manage it. Robert Mugabe is far easier, and let's face it, most people are more likely to write something that they can spell, rather than experiencing the social humiliation of spelling someone's name wrongly (even if that means you end up voting for a corrupt dictator who wants to kill you).

2/ Robert Mugabe could get all of his henchmen to stand in the elections, but using names very similar to Morgan Tsvangirai. So, we could have Morgan Tsvangarai, Morgan Tsvengirai, Morgan Svengali, Morgan Spurlock, and Kenneth Tsvangirai. The resulting confusion would see Morgan Tsvangirai's vote split 6 ways, leading to a surefire Mugabe victory.

3/ Robert Mugabe could change his name to Morgan Tsvangirai, so the voting form would contain two identically named candidates, and no-one would know who was the real Morgan Tsvangirai, and which one was the imposter. OK, Mugabe would only have a 50/50 chance of winning here, but I think it still significantly increases his chances (without using threatening ASBO behaviour).

I wonder how much I could earn as campaign adviser to Mr Mugabe?