It is not Mugabe only. At 84 he is a moving corpse, but it is his clique of other Mugabe loyalists from his early guerrilla movement that hold the key government positions that do not want to relinquish if Mugabe is ousted. They are the ones who have said that no other person who has not fought for the liberation of Zimbabwe from the Ian Smith's white regime will be allowed to take over. And they are the ones that have razed the opposition neighborhoods, keep beating the opposition supporters, and had ordered arm consignments from China to snuff off any serious threat to the regime.

Zimbabweans should keep quiet to avoid beating by Mugabe's police; vote en masse against him, and hope Mugabe's loyalists would not steal the election to protect their turf. And if they do, Zimbabwe would probably become an ungovernable wasteland. Nikos Retsos, retired academic.