Zim vote "count" proceeds slowly

"Count" of course in quotes, since the counting's been done, but the electoral commission (ZEC) isn't releasing results. No presidential results out, and only 66 parliamentary seats (Zanu-PF 31, MDC-Tsvangirai 30, other MDC faction 5). Some are taking the relatively even distribution of the parliamentary seats as a sign of foul play. Obviously there's the specter of rigging, but (not knowing how the released official results correlate with the MDC's count) I would speculate, alternatively, that the ZEC may be playing it safe and selectively releasing constituencies at a slow pace, making sure they're about tied, until the ruling elite around Mugabe has figured out what the hell they're going to do about the situation. As for the presidential vote, well, who knows... I'm sure they're keeping some usually pro-Mugabe constituencies in their back pocket so they can release presidential and parliamentary figures together showing big Mugabe and Zanu-PF wins, if need be.

Speaking of that ruling elite, reports suggest they're all trying to pass the back as to who tells Bob that it's over. I have to run and can't find the source, but I think BBC was reporting that...

Is the fix in?

On Saturday, voters in Zimbabwe went to the polls to elect a new president, parliament and local councils. Despite intimidation, a lack of independent media, very public (and threatening) statements by government officials, the presence of police in polling stations, and the inability of the millions of emigrants to vote, unofficial results from polling places seem to confirm that longtime opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai should be elected president. Financial Times reports that independent observers put the race at Tsvangirai 55%, President Robert Mugabe 36% (with most of the remaining votes presumably going to ex-government minister Simba Makoni). These tallies came from about two-thirds of polling stations, albeit more heavily weighted toward the opposition-heavy urban areas.

There are a lot more questions this time than in previous elections, however. In 2002, the entire government apparatus still backed President Mugabe; when counting stopped with Tsvangirai in the lead, and suddenly Mugabe had won, the opposition had few options. This time around, there are cracks in the leadership, evinced by Makoni's breakaway campaign (which does not appear, however, to have had a great deal of success). These cracks are much the result of the disastrous economy (including inflation over 100,000%, price controls which have stifled production and restrictions on bank withdrawals) which even some rural dwellers as well as civil servants, all traditional backers of Mugabe, must accredit to the horrible economic reign of Mugabe and ZANU-PF.

With the delay in the release of results, one can conjecture that, perhaps, the leadership is unsure how to proceed as they lose by a clear margin. The MDC has already declared preliminary victory, not wanting to be caught flat-footed like in 2002. Reports state that riot police are being deployed on the streets--perhaps in preparation for the announcement of the "results." Could the leadership hope to carry out a quick arrest of leading opposition figures to stifle any protests? And how strong is the MDC's grassroots organization this time? In the past, protests have been brutally suppressed, including the breaking of Tsvangirai's skull just two years ago.

There are three possibilities:
(1) Mugabe concedes. Not likely.
(2) The electoral commission announces that a runoff will be needed as no candidate reached 50 percent of the vote. While this seems like a "compromise" to some (I think I actually saw that word used in a BBC article), it's the worst option, as it gives another period for repression to intensify and magnifies the chance of violence.
(3) Mugabe is proclaimed the winner, in which case, the MDC will probably try to begin some sort of protests, and the government will try to preempt them. The presence of riot police on the streets may testify to the beginning of this strategy.

At any rate, we should know the "official results" within 24 hours.

Business

There will be no posting until next Saturday at the earliest, as I am headed out of town for a while.

Friday anthem - Maamme/Vårt land

Maamme ("Our Land"), the de facto national anthem of Finland, is in the tradition of non-nationalistic Scandinavian anthems which behold the beauty of the North. Indeed, the original Swedish text ("Vårt land") does not mention Finland. The music (by Frederik Pacius) and words (by Johan Runeberg) were written in the 1840s and translated into Finnish in 1867 (where a mention of "Suomi" was added). As Finnish and Swedish are both official languages of Finland, both versions are official. The same melody was later used to create Estonia's national anthem.

The Wikipedia article is good and includes lyrics, though note the English translation is based on the Swedish and not the Finnish lyrics.

Below is a video of Finnish singer Tarja Turunen singing the anthem at Independence Day festivities. She sings Finnish verse 1, Swedish verse 1, Finnish verse 2.


Here is a choral a cappella version including some images of Finland:

Thoughts on the Spanish election

The Spanish government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero won reelection on Sunday, gaining five seats in the process. However, the results were mixed for both the Socialists and the opposition People's Party.

Almost all the Socialist gains came from cannibalizing smaller leftist partner parties. Here is a list of PSOE gains:

• Almería (the constituency gained a seat which went to PSOE)
• Barcelona, 2 (gained from the Esquerra and Iniciativa per Catalunya-Verds, two leftist parties)
• Girona (gained from the Esquerra)
• Guipúzcoa (gained from the Basque social democrats, Eusko Alkartasuna)
• Las Palmas (gained from the Canarian regionalists)
• Ourense (gained from the PP)
• Tarragona (gained from the Esquerra)
• Toledo (constituency gained a seat which went to PSOE)
• Vizcaya (gained from the Basque Nationalist Party, EAJ-PNV)
• Zaragoza (gained from the Aragonese leftists, Chunta Aragonesista)

The PSOE made only one pickup directly from the PP, in the Galician province of Ourense, but lost several seats to the PP, resulting in only a 5-seat gain overall. The only seats which flipped to the PSOE from non-leftist parties were that seat, plus the seat in Vizcaya lost by the Basque nationalists. Most voters showed identical voting patterns to previous years; in Andalucía and Castilla-La Mancha, swing voters trended towards the PP, and the populares picked up 5 points in Madrid. Here is, by contrast, a list of PP gains:

• Alicante (constituency gained a seat which went to PP)
• Almería (gained from PSOE)
• Cádiz (gained from PSOE)
• Ciudad Real (gained from PSOE)
• Lleida (gained from Esquerra)
• Madrid (gained from PSOE/far-left Izquierda Unida)
• Málaga (gained from PSOE)
• Murcia (constituency gained a seat which went to PP)
• Valencia (gained from leftist Entesa)

Three of the PP's losses were in constituencies which lost seats due to population shifts, plus the Ourense loss. Thus, overall the PP lost one seat to the left in population shifts and one more directly, while taking seven seats directly from leftist parties. Advantage, PP, and the overall composition of the legislature shifts rightward. It will be somewhat more difficult for the PSOE to push through legislation this time around without the help of the Catalan conservatives; this may not be a consolation for Mariano Rajoy, but it's certainly a difference.

Other trends from this election:

1. The United Left is almost gone. The country's "third force," the United Left coalition, consisting mainly of the formerly-powerful Communist Party of Spain, has almost vanished from the scene. In the last election, the United Left just missed the 5% needed to form an official parliamentary group and won only 5 seats; that was their worst result ever. This time around, they did far worse, taking only 3.8% and winning just one seat each in Madrid and Barcelona. Their share of the vote remained in third nationwide, but as it is dispersed across provinces in a small-constituency proportional system, they have no hope of being elected in most areas, and they probably won't rebound. They are far from their heyday of being elected in places like Asturias and Córdoba.
   
2. The big parties gained. Together, the PSOE and PP went from 312 to 322 seats, leaving only 28 seats (less than 10%) for other parties; the two big parties took 83.8% of the vote. Losses were felt most strongly by the Catalan Left (Esquerra), which lost 5 of its 8 seats (4 of those losses were to the Socialists). However, the Basque nationalists lost a seat, the Canarian regionalists lost a seat, and the Basque social democrats and the Aragonese regionalists lost their only seats. This is a qualified victory for those who don't support excessive regionalization (though the Socialists gained some of their popularity in Catalonia through their pro-regional policies, and some of the changes in the Basque country might be due to a onetime "sympathy vote" after the assassination of a former Basque Socialist councillor).
   
3. Most provinces were stable. Along with the gains by big parties... in 31 of 52 constituencies, there was no change at all in the seat allocations. Another six constituencies saw change just because they gained or lost a seat due to population. This leaves only 15 constituencies where a seat actually changed hands. Only in the large cities of Madrid and Barcelona did more than one seat change hands. That is to say that winning a seat on the list of the PP or PSOE is essentially a guarantee to election, since the PP and PSOE are essentially "guaranteed" their seats. What will be interesting to see in following years is if the vote "locks in" with few changes or if the PP and PSOE are able to enlarge their platforms to court more centrist voters. There have been steps in that direction from both, but neither has moved enough ideologically to strongly appeal to large groups from the other side (in particular, the PP has had trouble with this). If the former occurs and the vote stabilizes, will Spain see a loss in interest at the polls? (And will Spain see a loss in interest anyway, especially in the smaller constituencies which seem to have no hope of changing a seat in one direction or the other? In the context of three- or four-seat constituencies, the vote swings required to move a seat are pretty big!)
   

One more note: there are several three-seat constituencies (mostly in Castile-Leon) which are regularly won by the PP, resulting in a 2-1 split (see Palencia, Zamora, Cuenca, Guadalajara, Avila, Segovia). Soria was formerly one of these, but lost its third seat and dropped to the minimum two seats, the first province to do so; the seats therefore split 1-1 in Soria this time around. If, eventually (we're talking over 10 years or more), the other three-seat constituencies drop to two seats, that will be a five-seat drop to the PP without any votes changing hands. (Five seats, not six, because the next seat to turn would probably be Teruel in Aragon, which is a regular PSOE 2-1 win).

To summarize, then: trends are favorable for the two big parties, and in particular for the PP, but for the PP to capitalize, it must continue to abandon its rigidity and continue to make gains in former PSOE strongholds such as Andalucía. And if Spanish democracy is not to become rigid and stagnate, the parties must continue to broaden their platforms and appeal to large groups of centrist voters, or else make systemic changes to create more "swing seats."

Results at the Spanish Ministry of Interior.

Spain: Zapatero gets another term

It appears, from incomplete returns, that the two big parties have made gains in Spain's general elections. With about 75% counted, the Socialists (PSOE) are in line to win 168 seats, eight short of an outright majority, and if numbers hold up, the PSOE can team up with the Catalan Left and the United Left to pass legislation. The Senate appears also that it will be closer. See the Spanish Ministry of Interior for returns; more later.

Is it the 1700s again?

At the Washington Post today, an opinion piece that makes me wonder about that very question.

Columnist Charlotte Allen says that:

• Hillary Clinton's campaign has been undermined by "every stereotypical flaw of the female sex."
• Women always fall for "the hysterical, the superficial and the gooily sentimental," citing historical literature and "Grey's Anatomy" to back up her claims.
• Women get into more accidents! (Sure, the odds that men's accidents are fatal are 3 times as high, but so what?)
• Men's brains are bigger! (I've seen the evidence that men have a higher distribution in terms of intelligence--i.e., there are more men on the very high and very low end--but that proves what, exactly?)
• A made-up story about how women had to remember where berries were back when humans were hunter-gatherers! (That is supposed to prove something?)

The conclusion from the overwhelming evidence she has presented:

So I don't understand why more women don't relax, enjoy the innate abilities most of us possess (as well as the ones fewer of us possess) and revel in the things most important to life at which nearly all of us excel: tenderness toward children and men and the weak and the ability to make a house a home. (Even I, who inherited my interior-decorating skills from my Bronx Irish paternal grandmother, whose idea of upgrading the living-room sofa was to throw a blanket over it, can make a house a home.) Then we could shriek and swoon and gossip and read chick lit to our hearts' content and not mind the fact that way down deep, we are . . . kind of dim.

So, I guess my question is... well, I have 2 questions:
(1) WHAT?!?!?
(2) Is this some sort of satire? I don't think so, based on this opinion column from 2005 regarding the Larry Summers events at Harvard. Allen states that feminism is one of three 20th-century totalitarian ideologies (along with communism and Nazism). She then makes essentially the same argument as here.

Apparently, we're still a little behind the Victorian Age...

Friday anthem - God Defend New Zealand/E Ihowa Atua

New Zealand is the only country in the world with two official national anthems. Many countries have a "national" anthem and a "royal" anthem, but in NZ, "God Defend New Zealand" and "God Save the Queen/King" are co-anthems. In reality, "God Defend NZ" is much more commonly played as the national anthem.

The song was first performed in 1876; two years later, it was first translated into Maori, and the plethora of vowels in Maori is clear from the shorter length of the Maori version (as more vowels = more short syllables). The meaning of "Pacific's triple star" is still unclear; it could stand for a Maori symbol, for the Southern Cross or for the three largest islands in NZ, to quote three theories.

The anthem became official in 1976 after the presentation of a petition to the House. Today, the Maori first verse is typically sung before the English first verse. Full lyrics and a history are available from the government of NZ; the Maori lyrics and their English translation are here.

There are lots of videos online for this one; the NZ government site linked to above also has several mp3s.

This version is a video formerly played on an NZ TV station; it includes two verses in Maori and three in English.



The video below is NZ singer Hayley Westenra singing both "God Defend NZ" and "God Save the Queen" at a memorial dedication in Britain.

Useless things I just learned

"Putin" in French is spelled "Poutine." Now I'm hungry again.

(Learned from: Le Monde.)

Decaying suburbs?

An interesting article at The Atlantic posits the idea of residential single-family suburbs turning into tomorrow's low income communities, homes divided into rental units, while cities redevelop and gentrify.

Key idea paragraph:

For 60 years, Americans have pushed steadily into the suburbs, transforming the landscape and (until recently) leaving cities behind. But today the pendulum is swinging back toward urban living, and there are many reasons to believe this swing will continue. As it does, many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and ’70s—slums characterized by poverty, crime, and decay.

It's interesting to think about. While I certainly could believe it, I'd like to know more about the reasons for these changes other than just "there's lots of demand out there." They said that about Clear Pepsi.