{"id":2783,"date":"2008-06-20T23:47:33","date_gmt":"2008-06-20T23:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/2008\/06\/20\/new-development-in-zimbabwe-sy\/"},"modified":"2008-06-20T23:47:33","modified_gmt":"2008-06-20T23:47:33","slug":"new-development-in-zimbabwe-sy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/20\/new-development-in-zimbabwe-sy\/","title":{"rendered":"New Development in Zimbabwe:  Syphalitic leader Robert Mugabe claims only God can remove him from office."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, now it&#8217;s official.  The leader of Zimbabwe is an out of control nut-job who will probably linger in office until very slow moving pressures from outside push him out, or until there is a bloody coup of some kind.This comes after his opposition has publicly considered pulling out of a contested electoral process under threat of increased violence that seems to be perpetrated by Mugabe&#8217;s corrupt organization.<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Zimbabwe&#8217;s President Robert Mugabe says &#8220;only God&#8221; can remove him from office, as the opposition MDC considers pulling out from a presidential run-off vote.&#8221;The MDC will never be allowed to rule this country,&#8221; Mr Mugabe said at a rally in the city of Bulawayo.The MDC will announce on Monday whether it will contest the 27 June poll, a party source has told the BBC.MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai is said to be under pressure to pull out in view of escalating pre-poll violence.The MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) says about 70 of its supporters have been killed and 25,000 forced from their homes in a state-sponsored campaign of violence since the first round of the presidential elections in March.New footage emerged on Friday, shot by US embassy staff, showing ruling party militias armed with sticks apparently hunting for MDC supporters in a township in the capital, Harare.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/africa\/7466875.stm\">More here at the BBC<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, now it&#8217;s official. The leader of Zimbabwe is an out of control nut-job who will probably linger in office until very slow moving pressures from outside push him out, or until there is a bloody coup of some kind.This comes after his opposition has publicly considered pulling out of a contested electoral process under &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/20\/new-development-in-zimbabwe-sy\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">New Development in Zimbabwe:  Syphalitic leader Robert Mugabe claims only God can remove him from office.<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[49],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5fhV1-IT","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2783"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}