Buga Me, Mugabe Loses.

With the opposition surprisingly winning the parliamentary election in Zimbabwe and looking as though they ight even win the presidential election there are a few things worth saying now:

• If you are a corrupt dictator who relies on thugs and crooks to cling on to power then it is best not to be so inept that even the thugs and crooks can't be bothered to fix elections.
• Whilst the MDC is a vast improvement on Zanu PF it would be a mistake to expect too much of them.
  
• Morgan Tsvangerai is not necessarily going to be a savior, despite his undoubted courage. As an opposition leader he has repeatedly shown poor judgment and an unwillingness to listen to dissenting voices.
  
• Any successor to Mugabe will be an improvement but we shouldn't simply hand out money to Zimbabwe until the new leadership has demonstrated a commitment to freedom with action as well as words.
• Although it won't happen, the best thing that could happen to Zimbabwe would be to dissolve it into two countries to create nation states for the Shona and Matabele peoples.
• Whilst I'm usually sceptical when claims of racism get thrown about, it is quite appalling that until Mugabe started attacking white farmers he was treated as a statesman and a hero in the west and given numerous honourary degrees and knighthoods despite the fact that he had used death squads to murder tens of thousands of black Zimbabweans since he came to power.