Thursday, May 15, 2008

Leaders PART 2

In the first part of this post, I introduced you to Putin, Medvedev, Sarkozy and Carla Bruni.

In this next part, you will be coming face to face with Mugabe and his political opponent...Tsvangirai. Hu, Obama and H.Clinton will have to wait for the next edition.

So say hello to Robert Mugabe. Mugabe has been the President of Zimbabwe for 25 years, and is known for his anti-imperialist stance. He became President in 1987, and was re-elected in 1990, 1996 and 2002. His political career, and especially his time as President have been very controversial.

For example, in the recent 2008 presidential elections, he has again been accused of vote-rigging. In the past, he has also been accused of intimidation, and preventing certain groups from casting their votes.

The 2008 elections have shown, however, that the people want a new president. Mugabe lost to his opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, but insisted that there be a presidential run-off to determine the winner.


And this leads nicely, to Morgan Tsvangirai, Mugabe's opponent in the presidential election. Tsvangirai has agreed to have a presidential run-off, and he will be starting his run-off campaign when he arrives back in Zimbabwe.

Tsvangirai is currently the President of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). He is a known politcal and human rights activist, and founded the MDC in 1999 in response to President Mugabe. He lost the 2002 Presidential election against him and has been arrested and tortured on several occasions by the Zimbabwean government.

In the coming run-off campaign and election, Tsvangirai has stated that there will be free access for the media, including the international press. Hooray for the media (and, I suspect, also for Mr. Tsvangirai)!

Pictures: Reuters, Reuters Africa

4 comments:

Annette Lin said...

Hey! Lol... the sad thing is, this is EXACTLY what i need! I had no idea who Mugabe's opposition was! So THANKS Steph!!! Hahahah

Stephanie Kok said...

Hahaha yeah I was learning while I was writing as well!

Bonita Silva said...

ooo thanks for this :D

Anonymous said...

stephanie.....'respect'