Morgan Tsvangirai was right to withdraw from the runoff presidential "election" in Zimbabwe on Sunday. Thousands of his supporters have been kidnapped and tortured by President Robert Mugabe's thugs since the campaign started, and 86 have been murdered already.

Thousands more would probably have suffered the same fate if the election had gone ahead, and it would all have been for nothing. Mugabe was determined not to let the opposition win, regardless of what the voters did. He even said so.

"Only God can remove me," Mugabe has been saying in recent speeches, vowing that he would refuse to give up the gains of the liberation war because of an "x" on a ballot paper.