CHINESE WIN ZIMBABWE ELECTION - PUPPET LEADER INSTALLED IN COUP GETS "DEMOCRATIC" MANDATE

Mnangagwa and his boss

The Chinese have won the Zimbabwean election, after their candidate Emmerson Mnangagwa and his Zanu-PF party used the usual African tricks to win the Presidential vote as well as a parliamentary majority. 

Mnangagwa, who was trained in China, became President last November after a military coup deposed the country's 93-year-old tyrant Robert Mugabe.

In the election Mnangagwa defeated the US-backed candidate Nelson Chimasa and his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) after the US decided to only half-heartedly collude in Chimasa's campaign. 

Chimasa's campaign was also hurt by a split in the MDC, with Thokozani Khupe running a separate MDC campaign. This split in the opposition party, which was so beneficial to Mnangagwa, Zanu-PF, and China, may well have been hatched by political strategists in Beijing, but we may never know.

The results are still coming in but the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has announced 110 seats for Zanu-PF so far with only 41 for the MDC Alliance in the 210-seat parliament.

Already allegations of vote-rigging are flooding in. But, because this is Africa, no one will get too triggered by that. Stuffed ballot boxes and funny counting are part and parcel of the democratic process in these parts. 

There might possibly be some low level violence to enforce the result in the capital city Harare (formerly Salisbury) as the MDC is particularly strong there. 

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