Don't underestimate Mugabe's Resilience

From IWPR website:

Although the result of Zimbabwe’s presidential election is still unknown, it is clear that President Robert Mugabe still commands a substantial share of the vote – confounding predictions that his support would crumble away entirely amid growing resentment at the dire state of the country.

As the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, ZEC, continues to withhold the final figures from the March 29 ballot, Morgan Tsvangirai of the main faction of the Movement for Democratic Change, MDC, has claimed victory with over 50 per cent.

A source in the ZEC and a member of the ruling ZANU-PF party’s politburo member both told IWPR that Mugabe could get up to 45 per cent and Tsvangirai about 48 per cent. This would mean neither man had an absolute majority so that they would have to contest a run-off...

But the most interesting part of the article is this one:

Turnout was disappointing; of the 5.9 million registered voters, only 2.4 million actually took part in the election.

You see, many people were afraid to vote the wrong way...their villages could end up starving if the Mugabe government saw their vote against them.
So they stayed home...
A passive/aggressive way of protesting (and the village Mashona is very passive/aggressive by culture).