Well, at least it’s been fair so far. The Mugabe government has arrested the opposition presidential candidate repeatedly, has arrested the #2 and charged him with treason, locked opposition voters in re-education camps, and more. He is using food as a weapon together with violence, scaring away voters as well as some police for critical polling stations.

A defiant President Robert Mugabe yesterday vowed he would ‘go to war’ if he lost the presidential run-off due to take place in less than two weeks.

Describing the opposition as ‘traitors’, he claimed Zimbabwe would never ‘be lost’ again. Speaking at the burial of a veteran of the independence war, Mugabe said he would never accept the Movement for Democratic Change taking over. ‘It shall never happen … as long as I am alive and those who fought for the country are alive,’ he said. ‘We are prepared to fight for our country and to go to war for it.’

The threat was seen as an angry response to the pressure mounting on the government from other African leaders over the regime’s harassment of the MDC leadership and supporters in the run up to the 27 June election.