Gerrymandering: The Tool Of Dictators?

With much international focus in the past few days on the elections in Zimbabwe it is interesting to look at how redistricting power has been used and is seen. The AP article on the upcoming elections phrases it this way:

“People long cowed into silence by Mugabe’s strong-arm methods are speaking openly against their leader, seeing the election as a last hope for the country where inflation is over 100,000 percent a year. But Mugabe is accused of stacking the decks against his opponents, redistricting voting constituencies, buying votes with gifts such as tractors, and delivering state-subsidized food only to his party supporters.”

What do you think? Is redistricting power a tool of dictators? Is it stacking the deck against the opponents?

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