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Opposition takes early lead in Zimbabwe election
Godfrey Marawanyika
HARARE (AFP) - Zimbabwe’s opposition took an early lead in the country’s elections Monday as authorities finally released the first batch of results after being accused of trying to help Robert Mugabe cling to power.
The Movement for Democratic Change party, led by Mugabe’s old rival Morgan Tsvangirai, won four out of the first six parliamentary seats to be announced nearly 36 hours after the close of polls on Saturday. The other two were won by Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party.
The MDC won the first seat to be declared, the newly-formed constituency of Chegutu West, around 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of the capital Harare, commission spokesman Utoile Silaigwana told reporters in Harare.
A total of 210 parliamentary seats are due to be declared as well as the result of the simultaneous presidential election in the troubled southern African country, which has the world’s highest rate of inflation.
reuters update
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe’s opposition MDC and ruling ZANU-PF were running neck-and-neck, according to the first election results issued by the Electoral Commission on Monday.
The commission started announcing the results from Saturday’s election shortly before 7 a.m. (1:00 a.m. EDT) after a long delay prompted the opposition to accuse President Robert Mugabe of trying to rig the vote to stay in power.
The first six parliamentary constituencies were evenly split between Mugabe’s ZANU-PF and Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said the commission.
Riot police appeared on the streets of Zimbabwe’s capital overnight and the state-run Herald newspaper accused the MDC of “preparing its supporters to engage in violence by pre-empting results, claiming they had won.”
Mugabe, 84, faced the biggest test of his 28-year-rule in the election because of Zimbabwe’s economic collapse and a two-pronged opposition attack that put him under unprecedented political pressure.
He is being challenged by veteran rival Tsvangirai and former finance minister and ruling ZANU-PF party official Simba Makoni. Both accuse the former guerrilla leader of wrecking a once prosperous economy and reducing the population to misery.
Although the odds seem stacked against Mugabe, analysts believe his iron grip on the country and backing from the armed forces could enable him to declare victory.
The commission began issuing the results nearly 36 hours after polls closed. Results in past votes have started emerging soon afterwards.
Mugabe’s government warned the opposition it would regard victory claims as a coup attempt. The president, in power since independence from Britain, accuses the West of sabotaging Zimbabwe’s economy and rejects vote-rigging allegations.
Zimbabwe is suffering from the world’s highest inflation rate of more than 100,000 percent, chronic shortages of food and fuel, and an HIV/AIDS epidemic that has contributed to a steep decline in life expectancy.
COMPLEXITY
Electoral Commission chairman George Chiweshe said the delay was caused by the complexity of holding presidential, parliamentary and local polls together for the first time, and the need to verify results meticulously.
“Mugabe has lost the election. Everyone knows no one voted for Mugabe, but they are now trying to cook up a result in his favour,” MDC Secretary-General Tendai Biti said on Sunday.
Two South African members of a regional observer mission said the delay in announcing the election results “underscores the fear that vote-rigging is taking place.”
They refused to sign a positive preliminary report on the poll by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and said there was evidence of “widespread and convincing” MDC wins.
SADC mission chairman Jose Marcos Barrica of Angola told reporters through an interpreter the election had been a “peaceful and credible expression of the will of the people.”
Barrica expressed concern about the voters roll, opposition access to the media and statements by the heads of security forces who had said they would not accept an opposition victory.
But he said: “We saw that the basic conditions for a free and fair election were there.”
The dissenting SADC mission members, who belong to South Africa’s opposition Democratic Alliance, said in a statement: “It is impossible for this deeply flawed electoral process to be viewed as a credible expression of the will of the people.”
The SADC, which critics say has been too soft on Mugabe, has unsuccessfully tried to mediate an end to Zimbabwe’s crisis, which has turned a quarter of the population into refugees.
Zimbabwe’s security forces, which have thrown their weight firmly behind Mugabe, said before the election they would not allow a victory declaration before counting was complete.
Government spokesman George Charamba warned the opposition against such claims. “It is called a coup d’etat and we all know how coups are handled,” he told the state-owned Sunday Mail.
Residents in the eastern opposition stronghold of Manicaland said riot police stopped a victory demonstration by about 200 MDC supporters on Sunday. There was no violence, they said.
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