As the delay in announcing the results of Zimbabwe?s presidential election stretched out endlessly, the political jokes proliferated across southern Africa. The best ones were based on the old « Why did the chicken cross the road ? » joke. The correct answer is « To get to the other side », but the protagonists in the Zimbabwean crisis were all given lines that mocked the positions they had taken.

Thus, for example, President Mugabe, who lost the election but wouldn?t admit it : « The chicken will never be allowed to cross the road. Not in my lifetime ! Let tho-se that run away to Bush and Brown do so. My chicken will never cross the road. It will never be colonised again ! »

Or Tendai Biti, Secretary General of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) : « We have irrefutable evidence from those who were at the road that the chicken has, indeed, without any shadow of doubt, crossed the road. I here-by declare that Chicken Huku Inkuku is now the legitimate resident of the other side of the road. »

Or Didymus Mutasa, the minister of Natio-nal Security : « I do not think it crossed the road. If it crossed the road it?s becau-se the white farmer dragged it. But we cannot allow that to happen. It will have to come back. »

Finally, on 2 May, thirty-four days after the vote, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission released the results of the presidential election. Predictably, it showed that while opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai?s 47.9 percent of the votes put him almost 5 percent ahead of Robert Mugabe, he had not cleared the 50 percent hurdle and so would have to face Mugabe again in a run-off.

The MDC claims that the delay was imposed so that the ruling ZANU-PF party could tamper with the results, and that Tsvan-girai really won 50.3 percent of the votes in the first round. He has been sheltering in South Africa for fear that Mugabe?s thugs will beat him up again or even kill him, so it may be some days before the party leaders decide whether to run again in a second round ? but the real Didymus Mutasa cruelly outlined their dilemma.

« I don?t think they are serious about not participating (in a run-off) because they have been saying different things since the election day », Mutasa said. « But if they are serious this time, they will be shocked, because we will proceed without them. The message is very simple : if they don?t participate, they lose the run-off. »

The regime?s strategy for the run-off is already clear. Recent changes to the electoral law included a multiplication in the number of rural polling stations, which ma-kes it easy to identify which villages backed the opposition. Many of them have already had a visit from ZANU-PF enforcers who beat suspected opposition supporters while local police and army units look on.

The MDC claims that 20 of its supporters have already been killed, and many hundreds beaten so severely that they had to be hospitalised. It could be three weeks or even more until the second round of the election, which allows time for every pro-MDC village to get the treatment at least once, and in some cases repeatedly.

The MDC will almost certainly agree to take part in the run-off in the end. Its supporters will face violence that may deter many from voting, and the regime will not permit adequate scrutiny of the voting by outside observers. This time, people trying to photograph the results that must be posted up outside each polling station are likely to be chased away or killed. Yet it is still possible that Mugabe will lose by such a big and undeniable margin that he will have to acknowledge defeat.

When you take account of the legions of « ghost voters », all sharing the same few addresses, who cast their votes for Muga-be in every election, and the large number of known MDC supporters whose names were removed from the rolls, the real proportion of eligible voters who would now vote against Mugabe in a free election probably amounts to two-thirds or more.

Thanks to the results of the first round, they now KNOW that they are in the majority. It is imaginable that this will give them the courage to use their votes despite the intimidation, and to turf Mugabe out.