Mugabe triumphs

last updated 8 January 2015

Harare, Zimbabwe

After his party won a huge, if dubious, victory in parliamentary elections last week, an ebullient President Robert Mugabe joked that he might stay in office another 20 years. “Until I am old,” the 81-year-old said. The opposition was hoping that the current famine and high unemployment would send people into the streets to protest what it called a rigged election. But Mugabe, whose supporters have beaten and killed numerous opposition figures over the years, said not even peaceful marches would be allowed. “They are not peaceful people,” he said of the opposition. “Law-and-order instruments will be used to prevent any mass action.”