The results of the March election were delayed for weeks, making many think that supporters of President Robert Mugabe fixed the vote. Challenger Morgan Tsvangirai officially received more votes than Mugabe, but not enough to avoid a runoff. If you've been reading this site these last few weeks though, you know that Mugabe's forces engaged in a campaign of intimidation and violence, finally prompting Tsvangirai to drop out, letting Mugabe stay as president. The video on the Guardian site is the first visible evidence of vote rigging.
What affect it will have though remains to be seen. Mugabe's response to international pressure has been to tell critics to "go hang". South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki is trying to broker a national unity government, something Mugabe is fine with so long as he remains president. Tsvangirai has said no to a government that includes Mugabe, while Mbeki has not been viewed as an honest broker in the Zimbabwe crisis - he has been criticized as being too close to Mugabe. One report has Mbeki meeting with rebel members of Tsvangirai's MDC party, so its possible that he could negotiate a sham unity government with Mugabe in charge and some token representation by the MDC.
European companies are getting fed up with Mugabe. Shell is threatening now to pull out of Zimbabwe after claims that Mugabe was hoarding the nation's gasoline supply for his supporters. Meanwhile, the German company that provides the paper that Zimbabwe prints its money on is also threatening to end their business with the country. Zimbabwe has the world's worst inflation and continually has to print larger and larger value bank notes to keep up with inflation (denominations of $10 billion and up are not uncommon now, but they won't even buy you a loaf of bread in Harare). Of course maybe the Germans are just tired of the jokes that the money is not worth the paper it’s printed on.
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