Odin

I was reading though that Mugabe himself apparently doesn't want to enter a runoff as he believes it will consolidate support against him and lead to a humiliating defeat. Who knows, he may just step down if the 'old guard' within the party don't want to back him against the peoples will - which seems quite possible from what is being reported. Obviously the fact that Mugabe made the concession to allow each electorate to publicly post the informal count results tells me that he doesn't believe he can wield absolute power there. He has a lot of cronies who have done well off of his back, and I doubt they will like to see him go, but I think they fear that if they keep the peoples voice down for too long when things inevitably change they will be persecuted.

I predict he will step down in the next few days - week, after a list of guarantees are made (i.e. amnesty, retention of wealth, guarantees on some policies - such as not giving back white farms, etc), and that he will step down (at least in the eyes of his people) as a 'freedom fighter' whose Zanu-PF base and cronies (in the military, etc) will act to make sure nothing happens to him. As for Morgan, lets hope he is wise and strong enough to bring in people from outside (i.e. the West) to manage Zimbabwe's economy back to health. From what I hear (from people I know from Zimbabwe) and what I've read there actually isn't a whole lot of quality, capable people under him.