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".
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]