Zimbabwe Election and Our Early Days
Morgan Chanderai's withdrawal from the race for the presidency of Zimbabwe, citing the escalating violence that incumbent president Robert Mugabe has directed against the opposition brings to mind Louis Hippolyte La Fontaine's withdrawal from the election in Canada in 1841. He cited the very same reasons.
The monstrous Governor Thomson (Lord Sydenham) was determined to assure that the English vote would dominate. Throughout Lower Canada, Canada East, he gerrymandered ridings and made sure that the polling offices would be located as far as possible from French-dominated towns if English ones were available. The elections, held in March 1841, proved to be violent and the army showed up only when English or Tory candidates were threatened. In the French riding of Terrebonne, the polls were set up at New Glasgow, a small, unrepresentative English town, and when La Fontaine and his supporters arrived to declare their vote, a mob confronted them. La Fontaine, the incumbent when the Assembly was dissolved, realised that the situation would rapidly degenerate into a violent confrontation. He announced he was withdrawing from the election. A quick search of history reveals that he was listed as defeated in Terrebonne.
Mugabe will no doubt declare the same about Chanderai.
Has our current government voiced an opinion about this nightmare? If it has, I haven't heard it.
By Joseph Graham
Posted at 21:50 on June 23, 2008 by joseph