MSNBC Breaking: President Bush calls Zimbabwe's presidential runoff a 'sham', seeks sanctions

[IDemo]

President Mugabe expected to be sworn in Sunday after 'sham' election

MSNBC News Services
updated 1 hour, 3 minutes ago

HARARE, Zimbabwe - The United States is developing penalties against the government of Zimbabwe, President Bush said Saturday, in response to the country's widely-condemned runoff election.

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe is accused of using violence to coerce people to vote for him in Friday's runoff.

Bush, who called the election a "sham", said he is instructing his secretaries of state and treasury to develop penalties against Zimbabwe's government and its supporters. The United States will press for an arms embargo on Zimbabwe and a travel ban on government officials, Bush said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States plans to introduce a U.N. resolution seeking tough action against Zimbabwe.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25425638/

[babylonsister]

1. Pot-kettle-black. * should have been sanctioned. nt

[texpatriot2004]

5. You took the words right out of my mouth Babylonsister. Well

said. :hi:

[babylonsister]

9. Hey! How are you

and hubby doing? Surgery is Tuesday? I'm out of town next week w/o 'puter, but can you PM me when possible to let me know how it goes? I'm sure all will be well!

:hug: to you both; hang in there!

[UrbScotty]

8. Took the words right out of my mouth.

[indie_voter]

10. Yup! n/t

[saltpoint]

2. If anyone is qualified to speak on presidential election shams, it's Dubya.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. "I sanction this sham election. We need to learn from them to apply those

lessons here in Murica in November."

thanks for your global bLEEDership on this region, george.

[Botany]

4. 25% of the registered voters in Cuyahoga County were "dropped" from the

roles.



That alone makes up the difference 100,000 vote margin bush had in Ohio.

bush talking about election problems is like Hitler complaining about
the treatment of the Jews.

[IDemo]

6. "It's a crying sham they didn't use Diebold equipment and do this the right way"

[Sal Minella]

7. Why all this fuss? Why doesn't Mugabe just ask the U.S. Supreme Court to APPOINT him president???

It worked once, it should work again.

[lonestarnot]

11. Oh fucking brother!

:eyes:

[ET Awful]

12. We should take him at his word, after all, who knows more about sham elections than him?

:P

[sourmilk]

13. I would post something more, but I am laughing too hard...

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Blue_In_AK]

14. Well, George would know about sham elections, wouldn't he? nt

[peekaloo]

15. Perhaps he should consult Katherine Harris and Kenneth Blackwell for their

perspectives. :sarcasm:

[malaise]

16. Both the US and Britain told the opposition leader to pull out of

the elections. There was no way he was going to win.

Ask Bush if he remembers this article after he was given the WH in 2000.

http://www.ecis.com/~alizard/vote2000.html

<snip>
A history professor from Uppsala Universitet in Sweden, called to tell me about an article she had read in which a Zimbabwe politician was quoted as saying that children should study this event closely for it shows that election fraud is not only a phenomenon of the developing world.

1. Imagine that we read of an election occurring anywhere in the third world in which the self-declared winner was the son of the former prime minister and that former prime minister was himself the former head of that nation's secret police (CIA).

2. Imagine that the self-declared winner lost the popular vote but won based on some old colonial holdover (electoral college) from the nation's pre-democracy past.

3. Imagine that the self-declared winner's victory' turned on disputed votes cast in a province governed by his brother!

4. Imagine that the poorly drafted ballots of one district, a district heavily favoring the self-declared winner's opponent, led thousands of voters to vote for the wrong candidate.

5. Imagine that that members of that nation's most despised caste, fearing for their lives/livelihoods, turned out in record numbers to vote in near-universal opposition to the self-declared winner's candidacy.

[Bluebear]

17. Let Sandra Day O'Connor decide the election Again.

[AngryOldDem]

18. That takes balls, now doesn't it?

Bush, of all people, calling an election a sham and taking steps against it.

Would the world have taken a similar attitude toward the U.S. in 2004.