But when the prime minister gulped and started to skip over chunks of his text in the face of the unexpected heckles and slow hand-claps from the unthreatening, decent folk of theWomen's Institute, it was uncannily reminiscent of the moment in 1989 when the obedient masses of Bucharest startledNicolae Ceausescu by their sudden decision to boo. The dictator on his balcony raised his hands, looked puzzled, stepped backwards—and the rest is history.
One way or another, Mugabe will go and it will be sooner rather than later. It is a question for him: does he want to go like Ian Smith and continue to live in Harare or does he want aCeausescu moment?
I myself became certain that Saddam had reached hisfin de régime, or hisCeauşescu moment, when he celebrated his 100-percent win in the “referendum” of 2003 by releasing all the nonpolitical prisoners (the rapists and thieves and murderers who were his natural constituency) from Abu Ghraib.
John McCririck, the racing pundit and former Big Brother contestant, later described it as aCeausescu moment. Galloway had primed himself for adulation, only to stand above the crowd and find that his waving did not mute their howling.
The kind of civil upheaval that many abroad had expected and planned for with Fidel out of the picture simply did not transpire. There was noCeausescu moment.
The late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il admitted to Hyundai founder Chung Ju Yung to having dreams where he was stoned to death in the public square by his people. What the Dear Leader feared was his"Ceauşescu moment" (which can now also be understood as a “Qaddafi moment”).
