Zimbabwe Government Hunts Its Own Leaker as Country Goes to Polls
Baba Jukwa says he's based in the country's capital
For the last several months, the pseudonymous Baba Jukwa, who claims to be a former ruling party official in Zimbabwe, has been posting embarrassing leaks about corruption and brutality from the ZANU-PF government on Facebook. At 300,000+ fans, the page has more followers than all the ZANU-PF pages on Facebook combined.
Last month, Jukwa warned that a government official who had recently released a report on government theft of diamond revenue was being targeted for assassination. He died in a car crash shortly after. Jukwa also often includes the phone numbers of corrupt government officials so that people can call to express their displeasure. This led to the government sentencing one man to four months in prison for sending text messages to one of those crooks. A recent posting by Jukwa, of a letter forwarded from an election official, says the ballots were printed in such a way as to make ZANU-PF more prominent than any of the other parties.
In an interview with Business Insider earlier this month, Jukwa said he lived not only in Zimbabwe but in the capital Harare itself, and that he could see the State House from his house. Zimbabwe's long time strongman Robert Mugabe has reportedly hired several foreign hackers to hunt down Jukwa, who has said he would seek political asylum if necessary.
Somewhat comically, while all this is going on there's a report in the South African that Edward Snowden had applied for asylum in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabweans are voting today in an election that pits Mugabe against his prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, who was the opposition leader who won the first round of presidential voting in 2008 before withdrawing from the second round amid a violent campaign against his party. He was made prime minister in a regionally-brokered political settlement. There are already widespread allegations of voter fraud in today's election. Jukwa posted safety tips for today's election, which include making sure to be indoors when the results are announced.