Regards, Ivan
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Posted on 03/01/2003 4:05:12 PM PST by MadIvan
ZIMBABWE’S opposition has obtained evidence that President Robert Mugabe won re-election in March last year with the help of as many as 1.8m “ghost” voters who were added to the electoral roll.
Tobaiwa Mudede, the registrar-general and a Mugabe loyalist, has repeatedly refused requests by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for a copy of the roll to be used in a court action challenging the result — even though the roll is a public document. Last week, however, it was revealed that the MDC had succeeded in obtaining a copy.
Mugabe, 79, beat Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC candidate, by 434,000 votes in a poll that provoked widespread accusations of vote-rigging.
Analysts say that even a pro-government judge would find it difficult to reject the evidence of the electoral roll. A judgment in the MDC’s favour would mean that the election would have to be invalidated and a fresh one held.
Mugabe, whose international standing was boosted when President Jacques Chirac invited him to a summit in France last month, would be barred from standing again.
John Robertson, a Zimbabwean economist who has analysed the electoral figures, said they showed “the illegality of the election is proven beyond doubt”.
“The discrepancies are so wide, the various forms of cheating so obvious and the interference in the process so aggressive and blatant, no country on earth should recognise Robert Mugabe as president of Zimbabwe,” Robertson said.
In its court action the MDC alleges huge state violence against opposition voters and candidates. It says it was not allowed to campaign in much of Zimbabwe or to appear on state-owned media. Many opposition voters were deliberately prevented from voting by a cut in the number of urban polling stations and the unconstitutional disenfranchisement of some white Zimbabweans, it is claimed.
The Mugabe government has, from the outset, taken the gravest exception to the case and repeatedly insisted it will not participate in talks on power-sharing with the MDC unless it is abandoned.
The last thing Mugabe — who is named as a respondent in the case and would be expected to appear — wants is an open trial in which the full extent of the vote-rigging and the violence that accompanied the poll would be explored.
The MDC last week refused to drop the case “until a timetable and process for the restoration of legitimacy in Zimbabwe has been agreed on”.
Mudede revealed in January last year that the electoral roll contained 5.2m names; the figure was later increased to 5.6m by additional illegal registrations in Zanu-PF strongholds. Census data, however, shows that in August 2002 there were only 4.7m adults in Zimbabwe.
Moreover, a range of surveys suggests that no more than a maximum of 80% of these have ever registered to vote, bringing the possible electorate down to 3.8m. The roll therefore appears to include at least 1.8m too many people; analysis of the numbers in individual constituencies could reveal further anomalies.
Mudede had rejected calls to give civic groups a copy of the roll on grounds of expense, and refused to hand it over even when they offered to pay. The MDC has not disclosed how it obtained its copy.
A successful legal challenge to Mugabe’s victory would be a blow to Thabo Mbeki, the South African president, and Olusegun Obasanjo, his Nigerian counterpart, who have put pressure on the MDC to accept a junior role in a Zanu-PF government.
Mbeki made strenuous efforts to ensure that observers from both South Africa and the Organisation of African Unity declared the poll free and fair.Last month he used his presidency of the Non-Aligned Movement to steer its 115 members into giving Mugabe a unanimous vote of confidence and voting through a motion that attempted to lay blame for the “grave humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe” on drought, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Regards, Ivan
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I just love when the evil of leftists in Europe and the US is exposed!!!
Think the SUN will send another "worm" issue to France so they get the news?
I wonder what the "international community," especially those great statesmen in France, will do if it is indeed proven that the election was fixed, a judge nullifies the election, and Mugabe declares martial law?
ANSWER: Not a d**n thing. They don't care when farmers have their land taken and are killed by government thugs. They don't care when a country that used to feed itself becomes an international basket case. Why should they care if a country that is predominantly black turns into a socialist nightmare?
Oh, but don't accuse THEM of racism and hypocrisy--only the US is capable of that.
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