Opposition Wins Extension of Zimbabwe Election: Doubts about government honoring ruling

yahoo.com ^ | Mar 10, 2002 5:07 PM ET | Stella Mapenzauswa

[Cincinatus' Wife]

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's opposition on Sunday won a court extension of the country's election into a third day, after long delays obstructed voting in areas opposed to President Robert Mugabe.

Voters queuing at Harare polling stations cheered and ululated as word went round that the High Court had extended voting to a third day, witnesses said.

Shortly after the ruling, police shut down polling stations that authorities had promised to keep open all night to process thousands of waiting voters.

The court ruling, confirmed by state television, was a major setback for Mugabe, who faces his greatest challenge in 22 years of power from opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Eric Matinenga, a lawyer for Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), told reporters the court "has ordered that an extension be granted not only for Harare... but the whole country until the close of voting tomorrow."

Election Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede told state television everyone who wanted to vote would be given the opportunity, but he did not say whether the government would honor the court order.

"The whole country has voted, with the exception of about 10 polling stations in Harare. Those are the reports that we have. But we do not close out people who are in the queues, they are allowed to vote," he said.

Mugabe and his government have overruled or ignored a number of court orders over the past two years, including two court instructions to halt the seizure of white-owned commercial farms.

Mudede said 2,475,147 voters, out of a total 5.6 million registered, had cast their ballots by 2 p.m. on Sunday. Tsvangirai lodged the court application after charging that Mugabe had deliberately reduced the number of polling stations and delayed voting in the MDC's Harare strongholds in order to fix the election.

Thousands of people were still queuing in Harare late on Sunday, hours after polls had been due to close in the two-day election. Some people had been waiting 20 hours.

TSVANGIRAI SAYS MUGABE DESTROYED ECONOMY

Tsvangirai, dismissing Mugabe's mantra that he is a stooge of Britain and white farmers, says he expects to win the vote because the president has destroyed the economy by mismanagement and the violent occupation of white commercial farms.

But he accuses Mugabe of trying to rig the election through extensive campaign violence, special laws and dirty tricks.

Matinenga and state television said Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa would appeal against the court ruling but Judge Ben Hlatshwayo had ordered that this should not prevent voting going ahead on Monday.

He said voting would resume at 7 a.m. and would continue to 7 p.m.

In some areas there were huge queues. More than 5,000 people were still waiting to vote at one polling station in the densely-populated Harare district of Kuwadzana late into the evening.

In Warren Park, a middle class suburb where riot police briefly beat restless voters earlier in the day, nearly 2,000 people were still in a queue at 9 p.m.

MORE VIOLENCE

As polling continued, reports came in of more of the violence that has dogged the two-month election campaign.

The independent Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum reported intimidation and attacks on MDC election agents and local poll monitors, saying several were injured.

It said at least 58 people, including two Britons and two Americans, had been arrested by police between Friday night and Sunday morning. They included 11 white farmers and were mostly MDC supporters.

State radio said many queues had dwindled and polling was closing smoothly in rural areas, the heartland of Mugabe's support.

The Human Rights Forum reported that the voting process was painfully slow in many parts of Harare. In one constituency, only 35 people per hour could cast their ballots.

The delays caused anger in the long queues in Harare.

"It is not fair. Voting is not a crime. We are not happy at all (with the lengthy delays). All these people are Zimbabweans and should be allowed to choose their leaders," said Peter Chiriseri as he queued in Harare.

"These are really sanctions imposed on us (by the election administrators), but I want to assure you that we are not going anywhere before we vote, even if it means sleeping here."

Tsvangirai says Mugabe has reduced the number of polling stations in Harare by a third compared with elections in 2000.

(Additional reporting by, Nicholas Kotch, Cris Chinaka and Emelia Sithole)

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Zimbabweans vow to wait as long as it takes to vote in presidential elections

[Dog Gone]

<

Harare, Mar 10, 2002 (EFE via COMTEX) -- Zimbabwe's Supreme Court extended the weekend's presidential election through Monday after tens of thousands of citizens were unable to cast their ballot in Sunday's second day of voting.

President Robert Mugabe's government said it would challenge the extension, though it was not immediately clear what legal recourse it might employ.

Opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai filed a petition Sunday asking that voters who had been unable to deposit their ballot on Saturday or Sunday be allowed to do so on Monday.

Sunday afternoon, a judge had ordered the government to extend voting by one day in the most hotly contested presidential election in the country's history.

Government officials appealed the judge's decision, saying the two days were sufficient for the 5.6 million voters to exercise their right.

But the Supreme Court ruled Sunday night that voting must proceed Monday.

The decision affected mainly the urban areas, bastions of opposition, where many people had returned home after waiting in vain all day at polling places where various "technical problems" prevented them from voting.

The reasons for the delays included missing names on electoral rolls, inspectors unable to work because of lack of accreditation, a lack of ballots and indelible ink to prevent multiple votes and power outages at some polling places.

Information Minister Jonathan Moyo said, however, that the long lines for elections are not limited to Zimbabwe, and that the government saw no reason to extend the voting period.

"Never had so many people come out to vote, although I do not know if they will let us do so," said Vitalis Chitga, a social worker who, together with many others had slept at a Glen View, Harare, polling place on Saturday night in hopes of being able to vote on Sunday.

Hundreds of people who waited patiently in line all day in front of that station, considered a Tsvangirai stronghold, were ultimately unable to cast their ballots on Sunday afternoon.

The problems facing voters in the cities contrast with the normalcy and speed with which voting occurred in the rural areas, where Mugabe has strong support and where no irregularities were reported.

According to the opposition, turnout appeared higher than for any other election in the 22 years since the country's independence.

In the legislative elections of 2000, Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union edged out Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change by 200,000 votes.

Voter rolls increased by more than 300,000 electors since then, most of them in urban areas, and local observers believe high turnout this year will benefit the opposition.

Former labor union leader Tsvangirai is the current president's most daunting challenger in Mugabe's long career as Zimbabwe's leader. That began in 1980 when, as leader of the victorious guerrilla movement that ousted minority rule, he became prime minister. He was elected president in 1988.

Mugabe was reelected in 1990 and 1996, although in both elections he faced negligible candidates and turnout was estimated at barely over 30 percent of the electorate.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Thank you for the post. Some reports have Zimbabweans standing in line for 20 hours. Mugabe's is using every dirty trick in the book to frustrate the election.

Voters line up in the sun as they wait to vote in Kuwadzana, Zinbabwe, on the outskirts of Harare, Sunday, March 10 2002. Long lines snaked around polling stations during the second day of the presidential vote, in which Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change presents the first serious challenge to Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe's government. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

Zimbabwean voters cast their ballots on the second day of the presidential election in Harare, Zimbabwe, Sunday, March 10, 2002. Voting took place for the second day in the election, in which Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change presents the first serious challenge to Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe's government. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

[Dog Gone]

Already, the election is so tainted that if Mugabe wins, we can't possibly believe it wasn't hijacked.

There are so many things, from intimidation to murder to even charging the opposition, formally, with treason.

Unless Mugabe loses, I'm afraid the situation deteriorates rapidly with much more bloodshed, and possible international intervention.

[goldstategop]

Mugabe won't lose. He has plenty of time to fix the election so he "wins." And if he doesn't he'll have the backing of the army to stay in power anyway. The election's just for show.

[Dog Gone]

Don't be so sure. He wouldn't be acting so worried if everything was under control.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Bump!

[Dog Gone]

Lots of stories out there about contingency plans if he loses the elections. He has friends, and most importantly, he's looted the country big-time. That will buy a place for him to go.

If he were surrounded by a bunch of democracies that weren't corrupt, he might have a problem. Sadly, that's not the case.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Electronic Telegraph-Mugabe to fight order to extend poll By Peta Thornycroft in Harare and Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor (Filed: 11/03/2002)

[Full Text] ZIMBABWE'S High Court last night ordered the government to extend voting by another day as tens of thousands of people in Harare were left waiting to cast their ballots.

The court granted an application by the opposition to extend the two-day ballot after Judge Ben Hlatwayo flew over the capital to see for himself the long queues outside the polling stations.

The government is to appeal against the ruling, with a hearing scheduled for today. As the court issued its decision, state radio announced that polling stations had closed and voting would not be extended.

An hour later, 60 riot police charged into the Glen Norah polling station in the capital, chasing away between 2,500 and 3,000 people waiting to vote, an opposition observer said. The polling station was then locked.

Tobaiwa Mudede, registrar general in the election directorate, said: "It is not our wish, or intention, to have an extension. I think things went very well."

According to official figures, the turn-out was unusually low. Tellingly, it was reported to be much larger in President Robert Mugabe's rural heartland than in the urban stronghold of his opposition challenger, Morgan Tsvangirai.

In several Harare townships, voters stubbornly stayed in line. "We will block the doors or we will die here," said one man vowing to stop the ballot boxes from being moved until everyone had voted.

Human rights groups reported beatings and scores of arrests throughout the country yesterday, including the detention of two Britons and an American jailed in the east of the country for attending an "illegal" opposition gathering and having radio equipment.

However, there were growing signs that South Africa and other African countries were preparing to recognise a new six-year term for Mr Mugabe.

Several observer sources said the South African government was exerting pressure on its official election observers to declare the election "free and fair".

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Official breaks ranks with Mugabe By Jacqui Goddard | Special to The Christian Science Monitor [Full Text] President Robert Mugabe's power base was crumbling around him Friday night after one of his party's key members and founding fathers broke ranks. Eddison Zvobgo, a former member of Mr. Mugabe's cabinet, current member of Parliament, and influential within the ZANU-PF party, told of his hopes that Mugabe would accept a dignified exit from power in the event of a defeat during this weekend's election.

In an interview, Dr. Zvobgo dismissed threats made last week by the government's external affairs chief, Didymus Mutasa, that ZANU-PF would initiate a military coup to keep Mugabe in power if opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai prevails.

Hinting at deep rifts among the president's political and military circle, he revealed that the party's "official position" is that it will abide by the result and will not tolerate attempts to subvert it. He acknowledged that there could yet be a coup attempt, but appeared confident that few within the armed forces would actually join it. "Even if such a thing happened and succeeded, it would not be permanent," he says.

While Mugabe regularly claims that British neocolonial interference is responsible for the state of the country, Zvobgo says, "I am not one who believes in blaming the world for the plight in which we find ourselves. Sure, some factors were beyond our control, but others were within our grasp, and we either mismanaged or we hesitated and lost an opportunity."

In particular, he said, was the government's failure to come up with an orderly and legal land-redistribution scheme - instead allowing the war veterans to launch farm invasions.

"The devil which has spoiled everything was when we decided to take land," he admits. "I spent 10 years in prison during the liberation struggle, but I didn't go through all that personal sacrifice simply for land," he says. "It was about matters of human dignity, an end to racism, opening up the opportunity for the human soul to freely soar so that every person can reach their highest capabilities." [End]

[Dog Gone]

Okay, Mugabe is defying his own Supreme Court and closing down the polls in the areas where he is opposed. The marxist nation of South Africa is now supporting that move.

Africa is going to hell, and those opposed to it in those countries had best seek asylum elsewhere.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

bttt

[GuillermoX]

You gotta wonder why he's even going through with this "show" anyway. Anyone who can think knows it's a fraud.