Free Republic

INTIMIDATION in the countryside, cutting the number of polling stations in the towns: these were the twin prongs of Robert Mugabe's vote-rigging in Zimbabwe's presidential election. But the skulduggery of the past few days comes at the end of a two-year reign of terror in which opponents have been killed, raped and beaten, the voter register has been falsified, the media have been shackled, the courts cowed and election monitors harassed. And there is more to come. Buoyed by his "victory", Mr Mugabe will now tighten the screws on the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and those civil and...

BANKET, Zimbabwe -- Just in case ruling party thugs drop by, a sentry with a rifle guards the gate at Duke du Coudray's farm supply store, where a well-stocked emergency hospital and radio communications center compete for space with gloves, fishing poles and fertilizer for the area's worried white farmers. As Zimbabweans packed the polls Sunday for a second day of voting in the hotly contested presidential race, Banket's farmers were busy providing support for the party whose success they consider vital to the nation's future and their own, the Movement for Democratic Change. On Sunday night, the opposition party...