>>>>‘logistical problems’ ?
>>lol,, That’s a good one.. Thanks!
Sadly, it’s not too far fetched. There have been rumours that some of the ballot boxes had to be transported by ox cart because there wasn’t any fuel for trucks. The ZEC also said they were unable to count ballots at night because they didn’t have enough candles.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
update on this ap piece, they’re cracking down on MDC
Zimbabwe opposition offices raided
ANGUS SHAW, Associated Press
HARARE, Zimbabwe - President Robert Mugabe’s government raided the offices of the main opposition movement and rounded up foreign journalists Thursday in an ominous indication that he may use intimidation and violence to keep his grip on power.
Police raided a hotel used by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and ransacked some of the rooms. Riot police also surrounded another hotel housing foreign journalists, and took away several of them, according to a man who answered the phone there.
“Mugabe has started a crackdown,” Movement for Democratic Change general secretary Tendai Biti told The Associated Press. “It is quite clear he has unleashed a war.”
Biti said the raid at the Meikles Hotel targeted “certain people ... including myself.” Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was “safe” but had canceled plans for a news conference, he said.
Biti said that Thursday’s clampdown was a sign of worse to follow but that the opposition would not go into hiding.
“You can’t hide away from fascism. Zimbabwe is a small country. So we are not going into hiding. We are just going to have to be extra cautious,” he said.
Independent observers say their own projection based on results posted at a representative sample of polling stations showed opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the most votes in Saturday’s election, but not enough to avoid a runoff.
Mugabe’s Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga said Mugabe was ready for a runoff, dashing hopes that he would bow quietly off the national stage he has dominated for 28 years.
“President Mugabe is going to fight. He is not going anywhere. He has not lost,” Matonga said on the British Broadcasting Corp. “We are going to go hard and fight and get the majority required.”
On Thursday, Mugabe was shown on state television meeting African Union election observers, his first public appearance since the elections.
A commission member indicated presidential results would be announced Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. But that was before the commission announced that Thursday’s expected announcement of senate results was delayed because of “logistical problems.”
The commission said it still was receiving ballot boxes from the provinces, raising questions about where those votes had been since Saturday’s elections, amid charges there was a plot to rig the results. Western election observers have accused Mugabe of stealing previous elections.
Mugabe has ruled since his guerrilla army helped force an end to white minority rule in then-Rhodesia and bring about an independent Zimbabwe in 1980.
He ordered the often-violent seizures of white-owned commercial farms, ostensibly to return them to the landless black majority. Instead, Mugabe replaced a white elite with a black one, giving the farms to relatives, friends and cronies who allowed cultivated fields to be taken over by weeds.
Today, a third of the population depends on imported food handouts. Another third has fled the country and 80 percent is jobless. Inflation is the highest in the world at more than 100,000 percent and people suffer crippling shortages of food, water, electricity, fuel and medicine. Life expectancy has fallen from 60 to 35 years.
Zimbabwe: Recession Slows Election Results
http://allafrica.com/stories/200804021068.html
4/2/08
Harare
The painful slowness of announcing the results of Zimbabwe’s 29 March poll is being condemned internationally as “suspicious”, but the accusations do not take account of the debilitating affects of the country’s eight-year long recession and its impact on the electoral process.
In past elections, results were announced almost immediately by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC). But this time, the battered economy and the world’s highest inflation rate in excess of 100,000 percent, could mean that final results may only be finalised on 11 April, election officials and candidates told IRIN.
“We could have expected more in terms of preparations for such major elections, but the current economic problems naturally constrained the voting process,” David Chimhini, candidate for the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the rural province of Manicaland, told IRIN.
Chimhini, who is also the director of Zimbabwe Civic Education Trust (ZIMCET), said: “Worse still, the ruling party hurried the elections in spite of protestations from the opposition that the polls should be postponed to June, all because they thought they wanted to retain power before our crisis got out of hand.”
“There were hardly enough vehicles to ensure smooth voting in the province,” said Chimhini, who won his seat. “The transportation of ballot boxes after voting on Saturday was a real headache. Officials ended up resorting to unreliable transport such as private lorries and tractors that broke down.
“To make matters worse, there was little fuel and in one case in my constituency, the lorry that was used because there was no official vehicle ran out of fuel on its way to [ZEC’s] command centre, and that meant a big delay in relaying the results,” Chimini said.
Shortages of fuel, food and energy have become commonplace, but the election placed extra demands on an economy which has become shadow of its former self.
—snip—
fwiw