Zimbabwe's Big Chance

As the days count down to the presidential runoff election, the showdown between the current president, Robert Mugabe, and the Opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, seems to be getting more complicated.

There's an interesting opinion article from Fahamu out of Oxford, England as the political race heats up leading to the June 27th election.  It says...

As if to underscore his party's public embrace of violence, President Mugabe now openly threatens to "wage war" beyond the June 27 Presidential run-off election, if his candidacy should be rejected by the people for a second time.

Meanwhile the MDC government-elect, MDC party structures and much of the party's leadership have been forced into hiding as they seek to convince voters of their right to select - and see installed in place - a president of their choice.

As if that wasn't bad enough, a new report out of the Zimbabwe Independent claims the police are being forced to cast their postal ballots for President Mugabe!

What's the reaction of the Zimbabwe Church to all this?  Make sure to watch a brief excerpt from an interview I just did with Rev. Useni Sibanda of the Zimbabwe Christian Alliance.  (You can find it at the top of this blog!)  The group represents more than 5,000 pastors of all denominations, both Catholic and Protestant.

Here's how they describe they're organization...

The Zimbabwe Christian Alliance is a network of likeminded Christian leaders and a movement for Christian laypeople called to stand for justice and peace and are a prophetic voice. The alliance was launched in October 2006 to mobilize Christian constituency in the transformation of Zimbabwe. Christian Alliance sees the importance of advancing the Kingdom of God into the domain of governance to ensure that people of God are ruled justly, fairly and in righteousness.

Zimbabwe Christian Alliance was responsible for organizing a prayer meeting in Zimbabwe around the time of the first election under the Save Zimbabwe Campaign.  The police cracked down on the peaceful protesters and many were beaten and imprisoned.

Are you Zimbabwean?  Or do you have anything to add to this discussion?  Drop me an e-mail with your thoughts.