Posted on 04/05/2005 4:19:47 PM PDT by Simmy2.5
HARARE (AFP) - Police in Zimbabwe went on high alert after youths took to the streets in Harare to urge Zimbabweans to reject the outcome of elections overwhelmingly won by President Robert Mubage's party.
As the opposition pressed calls for new elections and reform, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan stepped in and called on Mugabe's government "to build a climate of confidence" to take the southern African country forward.
"He calls on all sides to engage in constructive dialogue in the period ahead," Annan's spokesman Fred Eckhard said in a statement released at UN headquarters in New York on Monday.
Police said groups of supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) stoned shops and assaulted passers-by in Harare on Monday to protest the results from elections their party said were rigged.
"All our arms are on high alert to ensure a peaceful post-election period," police spokesman Wayne Budzijena told AFP.
"The police as previously stated will not tolerate any acts of violence and will use resources at its disposal to ensure that there is peace and security for everyone on the country."
The youths were distributing flyers saying "the MDC has rejected the election results and urges its members, supporters and all Zimbabweans to pressurise the regime into reversing this electoral fraud," the police said.
Ten more youths were arrested in Harare on Tuesday, the police spokesman said, following the initial arrests of two other protesters the previous day.
The MDC denied that it had organised the demonstrations saying the police want to use the protests as a pretext to persecute its supporters.
"All we know is there was a demonstration by a group of Zimbabweans expressing their anger at the flawed and fraudulent elections," MDC party spokesman Paul Themba-Nyathi told AFP.
"The police will always want to use such incidents to tarnish our image and persecute our supporters and members. They will also make all sorts of threats after such incidents but that does not alter the fact that the elections were flawed."
Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) won 78 of the 120 contested seats in the March 31 elections against 41 seats for the MDC.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai maintains there were discrepancies between the number of voters who cast ballots and the final tally announced by the Zimbabwe Elections Commision.
He said his party would consult its members on the course to take following the "flawed" elections endorsed as free and fair by observer missions from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region and the African Union.
The United States, Britain, Canada and the European Union have refused to recognize the elections as democratic, arguing that conditions leading up the vote favoured ZANU-PF, in power in Zimbabwe since independence in 1980.
"The secretary general notes that parliamentary voting held in Zimbabwe on 31 March was conducted peacefully, without the violence that has marred previous elections," Annan's spokesman said in the statement.
"He is concerned, however, that the electoral process has not countered the sense of disadvantage felt by opposition political parties who consider the conditions were unfair.
"He believes the government has a responsibility now to build a climate of confidence that will be essential for national unity and economic recovery in Zimbabwe," Eckhard said.
Elections held in Zimbabwe in 2000 and 2002 left scores dead and many more beaten, mostly opposition supporters.
In his victory statement, Mugabe urged the opposition to accept defeat, saying they should "not look for all kinds of excuses which might complicate relationships."
"Let's get together and FEEL alright!"
Call out the police to protect the results of an election? Sounds like they are at the edge and going over.
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