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Article: As Zimbabwe Goes...(politics)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Nation
- Article date:
- April 8, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 The Nation Company L.P. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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On March 10 the citizens of a small African country went to the polls to cast their votes for an incumbent with a reputation as one of the continent's most unreconstructed tyrants, a man who used every form of trickery in the book to secure his re-election. Zimbabwe? No. I refer to the equatorial Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), which held its presidential election on the very same weekend as Zimbabwe's. Military strongman Denis Sassou-Nguesso was re-elected by a 90 percent landslide after his major opponent pulled out of the race the day before the elections, citing irregularities and urging his supporters to boycott. One such irregularity was Sassou-Nguesso's refusal to ...