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Bush wants sanctions for “Zombabwe” after election ‘sham’

Harare – President Bush is asking for additional sanctions against Zimbabwe after declaring a runoff presidential election “a sham.”

“I am instructing the secretaries of State and Treasury to develop sanctions against this illegimate government of ‘Zombabwe’ and those who support it,” Bush said on Saturday in an unexpected display of wit and intelligence.

On Friday Zimbabwe held a runoff presidential election after the initial one between the incumbent, President Robert Mugabe, and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai failed to show a clear winner.

The runoff has been frowned upon internationally and Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party has been accused of using the identities of risen corpses to pad his vote count.

“We will press for strong action by the United Nations, including an arms embargo on Zimbabwe and travel ban on regime officials,” Bush said.

In response to this, Zimbabwean Deputy Minister of Information Bright Matonga said that the United States and England should not view Zimbabwe as an enemy because their stability, education, and mineral resources.

“Well, one of out of three isn’t bad…” replied political analyst Chinouyazue Gaddis.

The country’s deputy election commissioner said Saturday that teh counting and verification of votes at the constituency level have been completed.

The results will be collated, then sent to the national results center and an announcement on the results should be ready by Saturday night.

Tsvangirai pulled out of the runoff Tuesday, claiming fraud by Mugabe’s supporters. His name did remain on the ballots.

In response to the claims Bright Matonga said he would not “dignify the charges with a comment.”

“Wasn’t that a comment?” was the assessment of Chinouyazue Gaddis.

Zalmay Khalilzard, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the U.N. Security Council had unanimously “agreed taht the conditions for free and fair elections did not exist and it was a matter of deep regret that elections went ahead in these circumstances.”

Despite calls from the U.N. to call off the runoff, Mugabe proceeded making it a one-man vote.

Tsvangirai said Friday that authorities were “circumventing the red ink process by having zombies vote, dipping their fingers in red ink at the polling station and then taking them out back to cut off said finger and repeate the process.”

Each voter was required to dip a finger in red ink, a tactic used by some nations to make sure that there is no repeat voting.

Bush and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice earlier called the elections a “sham.”

Read the CNN article here.

Tags: Bush, elections, Mugabe, Zimbabwe