Nigeria is unhappy at Robert Mugabe’s continuing presidency in Zimbabwe.

The opinion of Africa’s most populous nation and its second biggest economy is hard to ignore, although some may observe Nigeria’s own presidential elections last year were not above reproach. “We express our strong displeasure at the process leading to the election and its outcome,” Foreign Minister Ojo Maduekwe told reporters, saying any negotiations over the future shape of Zimbabwe’s government should set the flawed election process to one side.

A few hours earlier, Botswana had called on southern African nations to refuse to recognise Mugabe.

Was it coincidence or the start of a concerted push by African states dismayed at the failure of South African President Thabo Mbeki to broker a deal that would end the Zimbabwe crisis? Mbeki’s role as mediator looks ever more untenable. Today’s endorsement of his role by Robert Mugabe will hardly have helped.

Are the public statements by Nigeria and Botswana the beginning of something bigger? Will more African governments speak out? And how long can Mbeki continue as mediator?

It’s decision time again for Morgan Tsvangirai. 

With violence spreading and African countries joining the ranks of those who say Zimbabwe’s election run-off cannot be fair, the opposition leader is considering whether to withdraw – which would leave President Robert Mugabe to continue his 28 year rule unchallenged.

Talk is still doing the rounds that South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki has been trying to get the sides to call off the election and form a national unity government, but progress seems limited at best. South Africa’s Star newspaper said Mugabe rejected the proposal.

“It would be very difficult because neither side would want to be the junior partner,” commented Knox Chitiyo, head of the Africa programme at the Royal United Services Institute in London, to Reuters.

So what would Tsvangirai gain if he pulled out of the election? His Movement for Democratic Change has been claiming moral victories for years, but Mugabe is still firmly in State House. If Tsvangirai withdrew now, would it encourage the region and the world to take stronger action? Could they do anything anyway? If he took part and lost would that make his position even worse?

What do you think?

When Kenya played Zimbabwe in last Saturday’s World Cup qualifying game, the chant of “Mugabe must go” echoed around the stadium from some 36,000 Kenyan fans as Zimbabwe’s football team came onto the pitch.

Africa’s leaders have tended to take a much less vocal approach to Zimbabwe’s crisis.

Some are certainly starting to use tougher language - South African ANC leader Jacob Zuma told Reuters he did not expect a fair election on June 27, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote in the Financial Times that Zimbabwe was “tarnishing the reputation of Africa as a whole” and Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has also spoken out.

Serving heads of state, South African President Thabo Mbeki among them, generally take a more cautious approach. Some say nothing at all.

Taking a tougher line on Zimbabwe has traditionally been difficult for countries in a region where President Robert Mugabe was widely seen as a hero of the struggle for independence.

But beyond the words - or lack of them — what should Africa do about Zimbabwe? Nobody really expects African states to use force and any sanctions could end up making the plight of Zimbabweans worse? Kofi Annan says it is time to get Zimbabwe’s leaders to talk to each other on resolving the crisis?

What do you think?

Ndesanjo Macha is Sub-Saharan Africa Editor of Global Voices, which monitors citizen media in the developing world. Thomson Reuters is not responsible for the content of this post — the views are the author’s alone.

In countries such as Zimbabwe where media and political freedom is extremely restricted, new technologies have become powerful tools for political campaigning, communication, advocacy and mobilisation. Bloggers and civic organisations have resorted to using new tools and applications such as Flickr, Facebook, SMS text messages, YouTube and mashups to fight for democracy, media freedom and good governance.

SMS Text Messages

If you are in Zimbabwe and your phone rings, you might be receiving news headlines from SW Radio, election updates from Kubatana.net or political jokes about Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Widespread mobile phone access in Africa has made SMS a powerful and useful tool for activists. Comrade Fatso, a Zimbabwean blogger, writes about the many political jokes circulating on SMS in his blog:

“… Another joke walking the streets of Harare is that the only difference between an election and an erection is that you can’t rig the latter.”

The UK-based SW Radio uses SMS to send news headlines to mobile phones:

“We now have an SMS news headline service sent to mobile phones.
If you have a friend or relative in Zimbabwe who would like to receive this service please email their mobile phone number to: talk@swradioafrica.com”

Kubatana, an online community of Zimbabwean activists, uses FrontlineSMS to send election news to their SMS subscribers and facilitate conversations. The organisation has also used this technology for its campaign, “What we want in Zimbabwe?” Amanda Atwood from Kubatana writes, “As announcements by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission have been trickling out, we’ve been forwarding them to our SMS subscribers, many of whom do not have access to television or radio, or who are hit by Zimbabwe’s persistent electricity shortage.”

FrontlineSMS, a service designed for non-profits, was also used by the Nigeria Mobile Election Monitors last year. Ken Banks, the creator of Frontline SMS, describes his work with Zimbabwean activists in his blog.

Electronic Postcards

Sokwanele-Zvakwana is another pro-democracy civic organisation using new media tools to fight for democracy and rule of law. Its website offers free satirical e-cards as part of its non-violent campaigns for change. The cards are organised around different themes, here is an example:

Economy e-cards:

Zimbabwe’s economy is in free-fall and it’s no laughing matter. Spread a bit of cheer by sending a humorous e-card, or send a card to alert someone of the reality of our country’s economic state.

They have posted a video of the e-cards on Jumpcut.

Mashups

Sokwanele has also created a Google map of election rigging using data from their Zimbabwean Election Watch series:

Explore the map and then consider whether elections held in this context can ever be considered ‘free and fair’. Information on how to use the map, the map data limitations, and the background to how we mapped the data is provided below the map. Please visit our Zimbabwe Election Watch section, and explore our database for a comprehensive look at the many ways the articles listed in the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections have been breached by the Zimbabwean government.

Videos and Pictures

Sokwanele has a channel on the popular video-sharing site, YouTube and a Flickr account. Visit their Album of Terror to see the extent of state brutality against the opposition. There is a also a Flickr account from another user with Zimbabwe Playing Cards:

On the outside this looks like an ordinary set of playing cards. But take them out, it is a fantastic political weapon - against the murderous, corrupt, hypocritical regime of ‘Robber Mugabe’.

Social networking

Various groups including Sokwanele have established their presence on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. There is a “Remove Robert Mugabe from Zimbabwe” group on Facebook. And a “Revive Zimbabwe” group. There is also a group supporting the presidential candidate, Dr. Simba Makoni.

A cultural activist network, Magamba!, has a MySpace page where they publish blog posts about the situation in Zimbabwe. The most visible member of the group is Comrade Fatso who also keeps a personal blog at Vox.

Mobile Phones

The South Africa-based election monitoring group, The Independent Result Center, set up a website to publish independent election results. During the elections, their trained monitors in Zimbabwe were sending information to South Africa via satellite and mobile phones.

This is how their monitors obtained information:

“ZimElectionResults.com obtained the results using polling agents who were specially trained to obtain data officially displayed. This information was transmitted to a results centre in South Africa using cell­phones and satellite phones to the centre which was manned by call centre operators.

Since election results were displayed publicly the agents were able to take photos of the actual results:

Polling agents were also equipped with a camera to photograph the actual official results posted by the ZEC. These will be archived on this web site later as forensic evidence. The polling agents also counted the number of people entering each polling station.”

Blogs

Immediately after the government started muzzling the media during the elections, Zimbabwean bloggers became one of the key sources of information and commentary on the political and economic situation in the country. Visit Global Voices’ Zimbabwe Elections 2008 page for links to posts written by Zimbabwean bloggers.

Online Political Jokes

According to one joke, Robert Mugabe is twittering! He joins the Kenyan President, Mwai Kibaki, on the popular microblogging site, Twitter:

… meetings, meetings, meetings. very boring.
12:03 PM April 04, 2008
Ooooo, nervous morning. Sending the wife shopping. She is getting on my nerves. Thinking of shutting the electricity down for laughs.
09:21 AM April 01, 2008
Thinking of live blogging the election results. Good idea?
06:42 PM March 31, 2008
Forcing people to eat election posters. Hey, at least they get fed this week. 01:49 PM March 29, 2008
just voted. Guess who I voted for?
01:49 PM March 29, 2008

The website Zimbabwe Democracy Now also has a Humour page on its website.

A longer version of this article is posted on Global Voices.