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Zimbabwe

My Lords, let me immediately say that the noble Lord is correct; we probably will get even the local election results before we get the presidential count. But that is only one of many extraordinary factors about this whole election. One can only hope that good sense and some integrity from the system will prevail, not least that provided by the extraordinary electoral breakthrough of having had the individual tallies placed on polling station doors and having had civil society photograph them and write down the numbers; all of that is impeding the scale of actual, possible electoral theft. However, delay is becoming a substitute for owning up to the truth of what the real results are. We continue to press for announcements now—we imagine that the numbers have been known since the beginning of the week—to the Electoral Commission and its supporters in government. On ending hyperinflation, a new Government are obviously likely to need expertise from around the world. There are an extraordinary number of distinguished Zimbabwean economists living in exile in countries such as Britain, Canada and the United States whom one hopes would be a lead part of such an effort. They can certainly be supplemented by expertise from organisations such as the Commonwealth. This is a time when help will be needed, not least because ending 100,000 per cert hyperinflation is a very difficult business. It involves a freeze on prices, which is immediately followed by empty shelves; Zimbabweans will feel that they have had quite enough of that. To manage this by using humanitarian interventions to prevent too much hardship for people as the economy is stabilised and the money supply brought down will be a challenge not just of economic management but of political will and of the stability of the new Government.