Vote fraud -- and it's not Chicago!

By Clarence Page

Even Robert Mugabe can't escape the age of YouTube.
The British Guardian has posted video of state-sponsored vote rigging by Zimbabwe's aspiring president-for-life that would put an old-school Chicago precinct captain to shame.

The video, shot by a Zimbabwean prison officer for the British Guardian, can be viewed here .
There have been numerous reports of killings, torture and stolen votes in Mugabe's recent anointment, but this is the first known evidence to be captured in video.
Opposition Morgan Tsvangirai, who has experienced beatings and detention from Mugabe's 28-year-old regime himself, pulled out of the election to stop the waves of violence and intimidation against his own supporters.

Though Mugabe was the only candidate, he directed voters to turn out for him anyway because he didn't just want to win. He wanted a landslide.

What he got was a "ZANUslide," according to at least one Zimbabwean journalist on-the-run . ZANU-PF is the acronym for Mugabe's political party, Zimbabwean African National Union-Popular Front.

In other Zim-related developments:

* Shell was considering pulling out of Zimbabwe early Sunday, Zimbabwe time, amid claims that President Robert Mugabe was reserving the distribution of fuel at gasoline pumps for party supporters, the Guardian reports.

* A few African leaders have gone so far as to call for Zimbabwe to be suspended from the African Union and regional economic development meetings.

* President Bush has called for sanctions against the "illegitimate" regime.

* So has the British government, which granted independence to its former colony Rhodesia in 1980, creating Zimbabwe, whose voters brought Mugabe to power.
Yet, at the same time it is urging world leaders to impose sanctions on members of the Zimbabwean government, Scotland's Sunday Herald reports that the Brits are proceeding with construction of a multimillion-dollar embassy in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital.

* Despite Mugabe's constant scapegoating of Britain's "neocolonial" designs on Zimbabwe, British companies control huge portions of its economy.

The video will add to pressures for Mugabe to step down or, at least negotiate a power-sharing arrangement with his opposition.

But even calls from some of his fellow African leaders to suspend Zimbabwe from the African Union and other international bodies have failed to faze Mugabe--as long as he has South Africa's influential President Thabo Mbeki in his corner.

Mbeki, flew to Harare for talks with Mugabe and whichever members of the opposition will talk to him. Tsvangirai was not one of them. He was refusing to meet with Mbeki, according to news reports, because of Mbeki's refusal to criticize Mugabe.
No word yet on whether Mbeki has seen Zimbabwe's latest most-viewed video.