Communist Occupied Rhodesia (COR) leader Robert Mugarbage was met with jeers and boos for the first time when he opened his country’s parliament this past Wednesday. The embattled Marxist dictator was drowned out at times by singing and chanting during the session, broadcast live over national television.
A strained and annoyed Mugarbage first raised his voice above the singing and clapping, which included lines like “ZANU is rotten. You are great liars”, and “We are tired of you”. Mugarbage then gave up and raced through the final lines of his speech, which blamed the West for the crisis his country is in.
The unusual show of defiance was led by the freedom-loving MDC, who are leading a movement for democratic change away from the iron-fisted, nearly 30-year rule of Mugarbage.
The MDC was legally elected into power for the first time back on March 29, 2008. When Mugarbage saw he was going to be voted out of office, he stopped the counting and held a “recount”, throwing his country, already wracked by 3000% inflation and international sanctions, into further turmoil. After a series of arrests and beatings of MDC representatives by Mugarbage’s Zanu-PF and a long, drawn-out negotiation and recount, a power-sharing agreement between the MDC and Zanu-PF was arranged.
Part of that power-sharing agreement was to uphold the seats won in parliament. The MDC won 100 of the 210 seats, Mugarbage’s Zanu-PF won 99 seats, and a splinter opposition group won 10. An independent who broke away from Zanu-PF has the remaining seat.
Mugarbage’s has a long histroy of brutality on opposition to his rule, going back to when he first got into power. Since Mugarbage’s crackdown in March, 200 MDC members have been killed, 2000 have been arrested, and scores more have been beater and had limbs broken.
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