The Guardian
Leader
The
Guardian,
Tuesday April 1 2008
Rigging the result of Zimbabwe's
presidential poll finally got under way
yesterday, after due deliberations
of Robert Mugabe's kitchen cabinet. The
Joint Operations Command (JOC)
consists of Mr Mugabe's closest military and
intelligence advisers. It was
reportedly "in shock" after seeing the scale
of Mr Mugabe's defeat,
according to diplomatic and Zimbabwean sources who
received first-hand
accounts of the meeting on Sunday night. The JOC
discussed three options: to
recognise the result and admit defeat; to annul
the election by declaring a
military coup; or to fix the results. The first
was unthinkable and
dismissed out of hand. Mr Mugabe favoured the military
coup option by
declaring himself president, but was prevailed upon to use
the election
commission to keep the opposition from power.
The Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission (ZEC) now has a difficult task: to find a
set of figures which
would give Mr Mugabe more than 50% of the vote,
avoiding a run-off. This is
difficult, because the opposition Movement for
Democratic Reform (MDC) has
photographed the declarations pinned to the
doors of more than 8,000
individual polling stations. But it is not
impossible. The results have to
be official before the MDC can establish and
reveal where and how they were
altered. It is a question of which player
shows his hand first. The
commission will play for time. Slowing down the
count will make it harder
for the opposition to keep up the momentum. The
ZEC has laid the groundwork
for a close result by awarding roughly equal
shares to Zanu-PF and the MDC
for the first 52 parliamentary seats. The
parliamentary results are no guide
to the presidential race, but if more
votes come later from rural areas
tilting the balance in favour of Mr
Mugabe, it could be made to look like a
genuine result.
This constitutes business as usual for a man who has
already stolen one
election in 2002. And the JOC makes two vital
assumptions: that the MDC will
fail once again to mobilise the people, and
that foreign states will sit on
their hands and look the other way. If, on
the other hand, senior figures
inside Zanu-PF understand that nothing less
than a political earthquake has
occurred, then the consequences of trying to
fix the result are less
certain. The opposition's own table of results,
collected from returns
posted at nearly two-thirds of polling stations,
gives Mr Tsvangirai 60%,
double that of Mr Mugabe. If this is the true
picture, then nothing can be
the same again. It means Mr Mugabe's image as
the father of the nation will
be shattered in the eyes of his supporters. It
means that large numbers of
Zanu-PF supporters in the rural villages and the
military have deserted him.
It means that Zanu-PF can not go on as before
with the "old man" in charge.
What happens in Zimbabwe hinges on two
factors. The MDC is holding its
breath, keeping Mr Tsvangirai off the public
stage but also keeping its
powder dry. If and when the moment comes to call
for mass demonstrations,
the MDC must be sure it can get people out on to
the streets. Forever
labelled passive, the long-suffering people of Zimbabwe
have to take their
country's fate into their hands. This will require
considerable bravery
because everyone knows how bodies like the JOC will
react. If Zimbabweans
have already shown their faith in the democratic
process by trying to vote
out a despotic regime, they have to stick to their
cause in the coming
weeks, and not abandon it.
But the outcome also
depends on Zimbabwe's neighbours, particularly South
Africa. Are they
prepared to allow Mr Mugabe to carry on business as usual,
knowing that he
has flouted the will of his people, and knowing that he is
dragging the
region down with him? The coalition government formed in Kenya
after so much
bloodshed was a triumph of African diplomacy. But the image of
the continent
now faces an even greater test. It must not shirk it.
Guardian
. Zimbabwe president persuaded not to
declare victory
· Trickle of results raises fears of rigged
election
Chris McGreal in Harare
The Guardian,
Tuesday April 1
2008
A crisis meeting of Robert Mugabe's security cabinet decided to
block the
opposition from taking power after what appears to have been a
comprehensive
victory in Zimbabwe's elections but was divided between using
a military
takeover to annul the vote and falsifying the
results.
Diplomatic and Zimbabwean sources who heard first-hand accounts
of the Joint
Operations Command meeting of senior military and intelligence
officers and
top party officials on Sunday night said Mugabe favoured
immediately
declaring himself president again but was persuaded to use the
country's
electoral commission to keep the opposition from power.
The
commission began releasing a trickle of results yesterday, more than 36
hours after the polls closed, but the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change said it believed the count was being manipulated.
Nonetheless,
the first results, for 52 seats in the lower house of
parliament, cost
Mugabe one of his closest allies with the defeat of the
justice minister,
Patrick Chinamasa, whom the MDC has accused of abusing the
law to persecute
the ruling Zanu-PF party's opponents. Other cabinet
ministers are also
believed to have lost their seats.
However, the few parliamentary results
offered no guide to the outcome of
the presidential race. Independent
monitors collating the count from polling
booth returns say the MDC
presidential candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, won
about 55% of the vote and
Mugabe 38%. The MDC also gained control of both
houses of parliament,
according to the monitors.
The MDC said the slow pace of releasing vote
tallies - likely to take days
at the present rate - was further reason to
suspect they were being tampered
with.
Sources with knowledge of the
JOC meeting said the Zanu-PF leadership was
"in shock" after it was informed
of the scale of the victory of the MDC's
presidential candidate, Morgan
Tsvangirai.
A senior diplomatic source who received accounts from two
people privy to
the JOC meeting said it discussed shutting down the count
and Mugabe
declaring himself re-elected or the army stepping in to declare
martial law
on the pretext of defending the country from instability caused
by the
opposition claiming victory.
"In the JOC meeting there were
two options for Mugabe: to declare victory on
Sunday or declare martial
law," said the diplomat. "They did not consider
conceding. We understand
Mugabe nearly decided to declare victory. Cooler
heads prevailed. It was
decided to use the [election commission] process of
drip, drip where you
release results over a long period, giving the
opposition gains at first but
as time wears on Zanu-PF pulls ahead."
Another source said that some JOC
members favoured a less hardline approach
by reaching out to the opposition
but were overruled.
If the government does attempt to fix the result it
will not go
unchallenged. The election commission will have to substantially
alter a
large number of polling booth returns in order to overturn
Tsvangirai's
significant lead. But the MDC has photographed results
declarations pinned
to the doors of more than 8,000 polling stations. If the
numbers announced
by the election commission are different, the party says
it will have
indisputable evidence of fraud.
"Unlike previous
elections no one can privatise the result as it is posted
outside the
stations," said the MDC's secretary general, Tendai Biti. "This
country
stands on a precipice. We still express our great misgivings about
[the
election commission's] failure to announce the results. It raises
tension
among the people that is fertilising an atmosphere of suspicion."
The
opposition is attempting to reach out to the military. A senior MDC
source
said Tsvangirai has approached the former army chief, Solomon Mujuru,
to
reassure the military that it has nothing to fear from a transition of
power
and to ask what its concerns are so they can be addressed.
Mujuru is
widely respected in the military but is treated with suspicion by
Mugabe and
other Zanu-PF hardliners after being tied to the presidential
campaign of
Simba Makoni, the Zanu-PF dissident who has done poorly in the
election.
Mujuru has yet to respond to Tsvangirai.
International pressure on Mugabe
to respect the result is growing. Britain
has little influence over Zimbabwe
but the foreign secretary, David
Miliband, said he and Gordon Brown will be
speaking to other African leaders
about the situation. They can be expected
to urge South Africa's president,
Thabo Mbeki, in particular to pressure
Mugabe to recognise defeat.
Independent, UK
Robert Mugabe is still claiming election
victory, although preliminary
results of the election show defeat
By Daniel Howden in Harare
Tuesday, 1 April
2008
Senior figures in Zimbabwe's opposition were in hiding last night as
a
tremendous power struggle played out in the wake of weekend elections in
which President Robert Mugabe's government appeared to have been
defeated.
Official results from the state-appointed electoral commission
were issued
yesterday, with almost theatrical slowness, as factions within
the ruling
party and the security apparatus scrambled for any alternative to
conceding
defeat.
In the absence of official confirmation, the
opposition Movement for
Democratic Change claimed to have won a landslide
and declared its leader
Morgan Tsvangirai an outright winner in the
presidential contest.
MDC spokesman Tendai Biti warned Mr Mugabe's
government against stealing the
election, saying: "Zimbabwe is on the edge
of a precipice."
He said the people would not accept a faked outcome and
vowed "peaceful
protests" if his party was denied the win. A cabal of Mr
Mugabe's top aides,
including six cabinet ministers, the Vice-President and
a former
intelligence chief, have lost their "safe" seats already, prompting
talk of
an opposition landslide.
Mr Tsvangirai, along with his fellow
presidential challenger Simba Makoni,
met security chiefs in Harare late on
Sunday night, according to unnamed
officials close to the meeting. Despite
optimism that a deal would be
reached involving immunity for Mr Mugabe and a
lengthy transition period in
which government chiefs would hold on to their
jobs, there was no agreement.
The leaders of the armed forces, police and
prison service warned prior to
the elections that they would refuse to
recognise an opposition victory.
With neither Mr Tsvangirai nor Mr Mugabe
seen in public since Saturday, the
country has been gripped by fear and
uncertainty.
Mr Mugabe had, according to one rumour, left the country,
but there has been
no independent confirmation of this.
Yesterday,
tension swept the capital, where phone lines were largely jammed,
forcing
people to communicate by text. It was then that threats began to be
issued.
One senior MDC official, a former shadow minister, said: "We were
warned by
an insider that they were getting the guns out. We've been through
this
before, but every time you get a dry taste in the back of your throat."
Several opposition officials have moved to safe houses.
Last year the
ruling party unleashed hit squads to administer punishment
beatings to
scores of MDC officials in the wake of a public protest by Mr
Tsvangirai,
who was himself badly assaulted in police custody. At least four
MDC
activists were killed and many more seriously injured.
Early yesterday
morning the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission finally relented
under pressure
from rights groups, opposition parties and foreign observers
to begin
releasing election results. But in a crudely stage-managed affair,
only a
trickle of results were announced – with lengthy breaks – in such a
way as
to maintain parity between Zanu-PF and the MDC.
With fewer than 40 of the
210 constituencies announced there were already
serious problems emerging.
Two constituencies awarded to Zanu-PF contradict
results taken from the
actual polling stations in those areas and seen by
The
Independent.
For the first time this year all results have been published
at individual
polling stations, so any poll numbers announced centrally that
don't add up
will be identifiable. The Mugabe regime insisted on tallying
presidential
votes at one central location in a bid to circumvent this
problem, but
photographs of results at individual polling stations have been
collected by
independent observers and the MDC in case of fraud.
The
Pan-African Parliament labelled the election process "problematic",
while
African Union observers have called for all results to be released
immediately. One of its own members walked out in protest after SADC
observers decided to declare the polls "credible".
The head of the
electoral commission is alleged to have attempted to flee
the country on
Sunday after being given contradictory instructions from the
government and
generals.
Gordon Brown held emergency talks with the South African
President Thabo
Mbeki and former UN secretary general Kofi Annan
yesterday.
Downing Street said Mr Brown remained in touch with
international leaders,
as David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, demanded
that the results of the
elections be released in full.
Mr Miliband
said: "On Saturday, the Zimbabwean people turned out to vote in
their
millions. Their voice must now be heard without delay. It is vital
that this
election should chart a course for Zimbabwe chosen by the people
of
Zimbabwe.
"As part of that expression of the popular will, civil society
activists in
Zimbabwe have been monitoring the elections and we look forward
to their
account."
Zimbabwe's total economic collapse, which has seen
millions flee into
neighbouring states, appears to have spurred an emphatic
rejection of the
ruling party and Mr Mugabe. Although riot police were able
to prevent
widespread opposition celebrations over the weekend, by last
night hundreds
of excited text message circulars were promising a new
beginning after three
decades under Mr Mugabe.
Mugabe's fallen
allies
*Patrick Chinamasa
The highest-profile Mugabe crony to
fall, the Justice Minister lost his seat
in the opposition stronghold of
Manicaland. The 61-year-old has been accused
of persecuting Zanu-PF
opponents, and several judges have resigned during
his tenure, complaining
of political interference. He stood trial in 2006,
accused of perverting the
course of justice, but was cleared.
*Joyce Mujuru
As a commander
in the liberation army, she went by the nom de guerre "Spill
Blood" and
earned fame for shooting down a Rhodesian army helicopter. Joined
Mugabe's
first post-independence cabinet in 1980 aged 25, and after holding
portfolios such as sport and rural development, rose to the vice-presidency
in 2004. She was touted as a possible successor to Mugabe.
*Didymus
Mutasa
Appointed Minister of National Security and Land Affairs in 2005,
Mr Mutasa
became arguably the second most powerful man in Zimbabwe with
oversight of
the Central Intelligence Organisation. One of his most
controversial moves
was Operation Drive Out The Filth, when soldiers and
police bulldozed the
homes of hundreds of thousands of poor
people.
*Sydney Sekeramayi
Another Mugabe crony who has served in
the cabinet since independence, Mr
Sekeramayu's most recent incarnation was
as Defence Minister. Studied in
Czechoslovakia and spent much of the
liberation struggle in Sweden. Has
considerable influence, given that the
armed forces have been one of the key
planks of the regime, and used in the
past to rig elections.
Yahoo News
By Cris
Chinaka
HARARE (Reuters) - Riot police in armored carriers deployed in
two of
Harare's opposition strongholds on Monday night as suspicions grew
that
President Robert Mugabe was trying to rig Zimbabwe's most important
election
since independence.
A resident of one of the townships
said a convoy of riot police in about 20
vehicles moved through the vast
area. "There are a lot of patrols here,"
said the resident, adding people
had been told to stay off the normally
teeming streets.
More than 48
hours after polls closed, only 66 of 210 parliamentary
constituencies had
been declared, showing the ruling ZANU-PF one seat ahead
of the main
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Two of
President Robert
Mugabe's ministers lost their seats.
No results have been announced for
the presidential vote, in which Mugabe
faces the most formidable political
challenge of his 28 years in power.
The opposition has accused the
veteran leader of delaying the issuing of the
results in a bid to steal the
election, which Zimbabweans hoped would help
rescue a country ravaged by an
economic crisis.
"It is now clear that there is something fishy. The
whole thing is
suspicious and totally unacceptable," MDC spokesman Nelson
Chamisa said.
An independent Zimbabwean election monitoring group
forecast Morgan
Tsvangirai, leader of the largest faction of the MDC, would
win the most
votes in the presidential poll but not by a big enough margin
to avoid a
second round.
The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN)
said its projections giving him
49.4 percent were based on a random sample
of 435 polling stations across
the country's 10 provinces.
It
predicted Mugabe would win 41.8 percent and ruling ZANU-PF party defector
Simba Makoni would get 8.2 percent.
Seven European countries and the
United States expressed concern over the
delay, and called on Zimbabwe's
Electoral Commission to quickly release the
results, especially for the
presidential election.
Electoral Commission chairman George Chiweshe said
the slow pace was due to
the complexity of holding presidential,
parliamentary and local polls
together for the first time.
"FAIR AND
CREDIBLE"
Mugabe, 84, is under unprecedented pressure from a two-pronged
attack by
veteran MDC rival Tsvangirai and Makoni, who both blame him for
Zimbabwe's
ruin.
Zimbabweans are suffering the world's highest
inflation 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.
And although the odds seemed stacked against Mugabe, in power
since
independence in 1980, analysts believe his iron grip on the country
and
solid backing from the armed forces could enable him to ignore the
results
and declare victory.
He rejects vote-rigging
allegations.
The U.S. State Department called on Zimbabwe's electoral
commission to put
aside "partisan sympathies" and "follow the letter and
spirit of the law."
Marwick Khumalo, head of an observer group from the
Pan-African parliament,
said the elections themselves were free, fair and
credible overall.
But he added: "The mission is concerned that two days
after the closure of
the polls, the overall outcome of the elections remains
unknown."
Official results so far showed ZANU-PF with 31 seats, MDC with
30 and a
breakaway MDC faction with five.
The MDC said its tally
showed it had won 96 parliamentary constituencies out
of 128 counted. Makoni
had 10 percent of the unofficial presidential vote
count.
The MDC
said unofficial tallies showed Tsvangirai had 60 percent of the
presidential
vote, twice the total for Mugabe, with more than half the
results counted.
Private polling organizations also put Tsvangirai well
ahead.
"In our
view, as we stated before, we cannot see the national trend
changing. This
means the people have spoken, they've spoken against the
dictatorship," MDC
Secretary-General Tendai Biti said.
In his first public comments since
the vote, Makoni criticized the way
results were being announced. "We are
very worried by the manner in which
things are unfolding," he
said.
Tsvangirai and some international observers accused Mugabe of
stealing the
last presidential election in 2002.
Justice Minister
Patrick Chinamasa and Public Affairs Minister Chen
Chimutengwende both lost
their seats.
The government has warned that any early victory claim would
be regarded as
an attempted coup.
(Additional reporting by Stella
Mapenzauswa, Nelson Banya and Muchena
Zigomo, Paul Taylor in Brussels, by
Tabassum Zakaria in Washington and
Adrian Croft in London; James Mackenzie
in Paris; editing by Michael Georgy
and Mary Gabriel)
Telegraph
By David Blair
Last
Updated: 12:01am BST 01/04/2008
By far the most impressive
building in central Harare is the
headquarters of the organisation most
responsible for eviscerating
Zimbabwe's economy. Inside its spotless tower
block of plate glass, the
Reserve Bank's sole function is to cause
hyperinflation by printing the
money that keeps Robert Mugabe's bankrupt
regime afloat.
If, however, the weekend's election defies all
expectations and causes
Mr Mugabe's departure, the world will be left to
pick up the pieces of a
ruined state. For a moment, set aside all scepticism
and assume that today
is the morning after Mr Mugabe's
resignation.
What must be done to revive Zimbabwe?
First, bear in mind the monumental scale of the task. In the past
eight
years, the economy has endured the devastation normally inflicted only
by
war or natural disaster. Today, the country's gross national product is
about 40 per cent smaller than it was in 2000. To place this in context,
America during the Depression lost 30 per cent of its GNP.
Moreover, Mr Mugabe has inflicted a depression on a country that was
pretty
poor to begin with. If they are to reduce poverty, African states
must
achieve annual GNP growth of at least seven per cent and sustain it for
decades. Zimbabwe has been going in reverse for most of the past 10 years,
digging a deeper and deeper hole.
Grasping why this happened -
and its wider consequences - is crucial
to identifying the steps needed for
recovery. Zimbabwe's economy rests on
three pillars: commercial agriculture,
tourism and mining.
By seizing white-owned farms and handing them
out to his cronies,
without troubling to provide them with finance, farming
equipment, training
or even title deeds, Mr Mugabe wrecked commercial
agriculture.
By unleashing violence against his political
opponents, he frightened
away tourists. And by passing a law allowing the
seizure of 51 per cent of
their shares, he forced mining companies to
abandon all exploration and
investment.
So Zimbabwe's economic
collapse came about as a result of government
policy. Consequently, Mr
Mugabe's tax revenues have been wiped out and he
cannot pay his
bills.
The response? The Reserve Bank simply prints money to keep
him afloat.
The entirely predictable consequence of churning out trillions
of Zimbabwe
dollars is that inflation has soared to 100,580 per cent and the
currency's
value has plunged.
The first step that must be taken
is to stabilise the economy and curb
hyperinflation. The Africa department
of the International Monetary Fund,
led by Abdoulaye Bio-Tchané, will take
charge of this effort.
Reducing inflation means the government must
stop printing money. This
can only happen if someone else pays its bills. So
the IMF will probably
agree an immediate injection of funds to keep Zimbabwe
going while the
Reserve Bank turns off its printing presses.
This should curb inflation in a matter of months. But a full
stabilisation
package will have to go much further.
Under Mr Mugabe, Zimbabwe's
government grew ever larger and made no
effort to curb its spending. His
successor will have to reduce the size of
the civil service and privatise
the publicly owned companies, which are
little more than shells. In
particular, he will have to slash military
spending, which presently exceeds
the health budget.
Mr Mugabe promised to do all this in 1999, in
exchange for an IMF
balance of payments facility of US$193 million. Few were
surprised when he
broke his promise and the IMF responded by ending its
support.
Zimbabwe's next president should look at the letter of
intent that Mr
Mugabe signed with the IMF nine years ago. In return for
funds going beyond
immediate stabilisation, these promises will have to be
kept.
Economic recovery will also require a new currency. The best
illustration of the Zimbabwe dollar's headlong collapse is that eight years
ago, Z$14 million would have bought a mansion in Harare. Three weeks ago, it
was enough to buy one can of Diet Coke.
By yesterday, however,
a can of Diet Coke cost Z$56 million.
With inflation under control
and a new currency introduced, Zimbabwe's
new government can look to longer
term recovery. Commercial agriculture will
be the key.
Some
white farmers must be allowed to return and Mr Mugabe's
disastrous land
ownership laws, which make all agricultural land the
property of the state,
must be repealed.
With private title deeds restored, farmers will
able to raise finance
and resume production. If Zimbabwe can shake off its
reputation for
violence, tourists might return in large numbers to a country
that boasts
teeming wildlife and the Victoria Falls.
With
inflation under control and predatory ownership laws repealed,
the mines
might also revive.
Outside donors, notably the British government
and the World Bank,
will have to provide the cash to restore Zimbabwe's
tattered infrastructure.
The inexpressible tragedy is that even if all this
takes place - and it
could take years - Zimbabwe will only return to the
position it enjoyed a
decade ago.
Mr Mugabe's legacy could
scarcely be more pitiful.
Independent, UK
Leading article:
Tuesday, 1 April 2008
The silence from the ruling party in
Zimbabwe could mean one of two things.
It might mean that a massive rigging
operation is taking place at the
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to turn
around what looks like a resounding
electoral defeat for President Robert
Mugabe – and make it look like he has
just scraped past the 51 per cent of
the vote needed to avoid a second round
of voting, and give his party a
majority in parliament. Or it might be that
the ruling elite is engaged in a
frantic process of negotiation over who
will tell the ageing despot that the
time has come when he really does have
to step down. We can be hopeful it is
the latter since the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has
said privately that its leaders
have put out feelers to the faction of
Zanu-PF which is least sympathetic to
its boss to try to arrange a peaceful
transfer of power.
Mr Mugabe has fiddled the result in at least two
previous elections, in 2002
and 2005. But things are different this time. On
previous occasions the
majority of the MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, was
narrow and the
vote-rigging required was possible to disguise or deny, at
least to the
extent that a good percentage of the electorate remained in a
state of
doubt. This time his defeat has been so thundering that
vote-rigging would
be seen to be blatant. The Mugabe regime can stay in
power only with a heavy
show of force from the army and police, whose chiefs
were, as recently as
Sunday evening, publicly declaring that they would not
allow a victory by Mr
Tsvangarai.
Opposition politicians have been
canny this time in getting the results
published in individual
constituencies as soon as the counts were complete.
It will be much harder
for the Electoral Commission to cook the books in the
final reckoning. The
MDC has claimed, on the results declared in 128 of the
country's 210
parliamentary districts, that Mr Tsvangirai has around 60 per
cent of the
votes, almost double what Mr Mugabe has mustered. Observers
inside Zimbabwe
say privately that almost 80 per cent of the result is known
and that six
Cabinet ministers, including several of Mr Mugabe's closest
cronies, have
lost their parliamentary seats.
Even Mugabe strongholds which in the past
bought his rhetoric about the
endless war of liberation, and his constant
attacks on the British
Government, have turned away from him. They clearly
would have preferred it
had he stepped aside last October when his Zanu-PF
colleagues urged him to
stand down while he was still the revered liberation
hero and allow another
of their gang to take over. Mr Mugabe gambled and he
has lost.
The leader of neighbouring African countries must now make
clear that the
will of the Zimbabwean people must be upheld. The opposition
must not be
persuaded to go to the courts, a strategy they tried last time
without
success. Nor is there now a case of international mediation of the
kind that
Kofi Annan conducted in Kenya, where so many ballot boxes were
destroyed
that it was impossible to know the outcome of the poll. The vote
in Zimbabwe
has already been recorded locally.
The key may lie with
the army chiefs whom Mr Mugabe consulted on Sunday
night, fearful of their
possible reaction to a defeat. They pledged their
loyalty then. But now that
the people have spoken so decisively they should
change their minds and
force the change that the voters require, if
necessary initially through a
government of national unity pending properly
free elections. For one thing
is clear, whatever happens in the days ahead,
things can never go back to
how they were a week ago. A turning point has
been reached in Zimbabwe. And
not before time.
The Scotsman
By JANE FIELDS
ZIMBABWE is poised for
political upheaval in the wake of a disputed election
result, according to
opposition leaders who say the troubled country "stands
on a
precipice".
Only a trickle of official results from Saturday's ballot
emerged yesterday,
prompting fears that Robert Mugabe, the president, was
planning a massive
fraud in the face of overwhelming defeat.
Amid
widespread rumours that Mr Mugabe is preparing to flee the country, it
is
understood South Africa has been called upon by foreign leaders to
persuade
him to accept defeat.
Results showed Mr Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party was
neck-and-neck with the
opposition MDC, led by Morgan Tsvangirai, in the
constituency votes.
However, the MDC issued its own figures claiming it had
60 per cent of the
ballot, compared to 30 per cent for Mr
Mugabe.
Only a limited number of observers have been allowed to monitor
the
election, but the voting process itself appears to have been relatively
free
of fraud. It is the announcement of the results which has prompted
international concern.
The United States and Britain were among those
yesterday calling on Mr
Mugabe to announce the full election results as
quickly as possible.
David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said there
should be "no unnecessary
delay" in releasing the full results and described
the next few days as
"critical for the future of Zimbabwe".
The
elections presented Mr Mugabe, 84, with the toughest challenge yet to
his
28-year rule. Voting was generally peaceful after a campaign which
focused
on the ruined economy, with inflation soaring beyond 100,000 per
cent.
Tendai Biti, the general-secretary of the MDC, claimed
vote-rigging was
under way which was aimed at giving Mr Mugabe a 52 per cent
victory in the
presidential race and his party 111 of the 210 House of
Assembly seats. A
presidential candidate needs at least 50 per cent plus one
to avoid a second
round vote.
Mr Biti said the slow official
reporting "raises tension among the people".
He added: "This country stands
on a precipice."
Mr Tsvangirai narrowly lost disputed 2002 elections, and
questions have been
raised as to whether Mr Mugabe would accept defeat this
time.
Mr Tsvangirai could declare himself the official winner this
morning, ending
the suspense of Harare residents who spent yesterday glued
to phones, radios
and foreign news stations, desperate for news. Networks
jammed, making it
impossible to make phone calls. In bread queues, people
shouted out: "How
are the elections?"
The first results were not
announced on state radio until yesterday
morning – 36 hours after polls
ended. There was excitement when the first
seat went to the MDC. "We're
going to celebrate," said a waiter in Newlands,
Harare. "Does Mugabe think
he can pull up his socks now? Change is coming."
Another man told
queueing customers in a supermarket in Kensington suburb
that Mr Mugabe had
fled "to Malaysia" and that Gideon Gono, the governor of
the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe who printed trillions of dollars to allow Mr
Mugabe to purchase
cars, farm machinery and fuel for election handouts, had
also left the
country.
These rumours were unconfirmed. Mr Mugabe is believed to have
arranged ahead
of the elections for his helicopter to be permanently ready
at State House,
his heavily guarded official residence near the city
centre.
Excitement turned to despondency as it soon became clear that the
release of
the results was being carefully choreographed. They were
announced
apparently randomly, not in alphabetical order nor by
province.
Each announcement of an MDC win was followed by a ZANU-PF win,
so that by
last night it appeared the opposition and the ruling party were
running
neck-and-neck, each with 26 parliamentary seats.
There was no
word on presidential results.
Residents expressed disbelief at the size
of the ruling party victory in
some constituencies, fuelling fears the MDC
might not have scooped the
overwhelming victory it initially
claimed.
Joyce Mujuru, the vice-president, held her Mount Darwin West
seat with
14,000 votes to just over 1,000 for the MDC.
Official
results showed several other ruling party heavyweights – including
David
Parirenyatwa, the health minister, Saviour Kasukuwere, the deputy
youth
minister, Nicholas Goche, the labour minister and Webster Shamu, the
minister for policy implementation – were also re-elected with large
majorities.
In a tin-roofed shack in Avondale suburb, Cephas, a
secondhand book dealer,
said: "We are sick of all this waiting. We want
change. Our lives are so
bad."
Q & A: BALLOT-BOX
BASICS
Why are delays significant?
In past elections, results
emerged quickly. Further delays would stoke
opposition suspicions of rigging
to ensure the continued rule of Mugabe,
blamed by opponents for an economic
crisis that has ruined Zimbabwe.
How did voting go?
There were no
major reports of violence in Saturday's vote but the
opposition and one
African observer group reported irregularities –
including rolls with many
non-existent or dead voters. Most international
observers were
banned.
Who will win?
Morgan Tsvangirai's opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) says it
won based on local vote counts pinned up
outside polling stations. The
government has warned such premature
declarations could amount to "a coup".
Many analysts expect the result to
be manipulated and said Mugabe would
declare victory even if he lost.
Security service chiefs have said they
would not accept an opposition win.
Tsvangirai and some international
observers said Mugabe lost the last
presidential election in 2002 but he
stayed in power.
If no candidate
gets over half the votes in the first round of the
presidential election,
there would be a run-off.
What if Mugabe wins?
If Mugabe
wins the presidential poll outright, this is certain to be
rejected by the
opposition MDC and some of its supporters could take to the
streets. But a
scenario of prolonged protests and bloodshed seems unlikely.
What if
Tsvangirai wins?
If Tsvangirai wins, ZANU-PF militants and security
forces are likely to
reject his victory, leading to a violent crackdown
against the MDC.
Tsvangirai has said he would form a national unity
government, bringing in
moderate elements of ZANU-PF.
What if there
is a run-off?
A second round could unite the opposition. The campaign of
Simba Makoni,
whose split from the ruling ZANU-PF party showed up its
internal divisions,
has already said he would swing his support behind
Tsvangirai. Makoni
appears to have done badly in the vote, falling into a
distant third place.
If there is a run-off, Mugabe would be expected to
deploy ZANU-PF militants
and independence-war veterans to ensure victory,
raising the prospect of
violent clashes with defiant MDC supporters in the
three-week hiatus between
votes.
A run-off is likely to end with
Mugabe being declared victor, leaving
political tension and no prospect of
saving the economy.
What do the results show?
Not much so far.
Only a few parliamentary results have been issued by the
electoral
commission. First parliamentary constituency results were evenly
split
between Mugabe's ZANU-PF and the opposition MDC. However the
opposition says
its own unofficial count shows it has 60 per cent of the
presidential vote
and a similar proportion of the 210 parliamentary
constituencies.
Analysts say early counting tends to come from the
opposition's urban
strongholds whereas later results will include rural
areas that are Mugabe's
traditional base.
Last Updated: 31
March 2008 9:30 PM
The Times
April 1, 2008
Bronwen
Maddox: World Briefing
When the results of Zimbabwe’s elections come in,
Britain will have a chance
to help the shattered country more actively than
it has done so far – and it
will have no excuse for not doing so.
If,
by some scarcely believable feat, the opposition party has managed – for
all
the intimidation and vote-rigging – to prise President Mugabe from his
28-year rule, then Britain will be able to pour in millions of pounds of
aid. That decision is easy.
But if Mugabe has clung on by rigging the
vote, despite reports that the
opposition had won by a long way, then it
will be time for Britain to speak
up much more noisily than it has done,
shaking off the inhibitions that it
has felt perhaps too keenly because of
its colonial past.
Britain has chosen to keep quieter than it might have
done as Mugabe took
Zimbabwe from stability and prosperity into poverty and
violence, with the
lowest life expectancy in the world and one of the
highest rates of Aids
infection. It has been inhibited by its past role as
the colonial ruler of
Zimbabwe, then Rhodesia, until 1980, and Mugabe’s
success since then in
portraying Britain as the would-be oppressor. When
Britain criticised him,
he could use the “evidence” of British colonialism
to stir up his supporters
at home, and to rally other African leaders to his
cause.
Tom Porteous, the UK director of Human Rights Watch, the research
and lobby
group, argues that Britain “made the right decision, for once” in
not being
more confrontational, because it would have been
counter-productive. He
added that Human Rights Watch was “all for people
speaking out about human
rights abuses. But Britain made its position [on
Mugabe] very clear, and it’s
also clear that when it did raise its voice,
that was presented as a
colonial voice by Mugabe.”
Raising Britain’s
voice, in this case, might mean trying to drum up support
against Mugabe in
the United Nations, and shutting the British High
Commission in Zimbabwe.
But Britain has wanted to keep a lower profile
partly, officials say, to
protect those with British connections living in
Zimbabwe. The careful line
of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has been
that it supports “effective
and well-managed land reform”, although Mugabe’s
compulsory seizure of
white-owned farms has taken the country into violence
and near-starvation,
as the output from the farms of this once hugely
productive country
collapsed.
Instead, Britain has tried to work quietly through the United
Nations, and
has lobbied South Africa in a near-futile bid to persuade
President Mbeki to
put pressure on Mugabe. Yesterday Gordon Brown telephoned
Kofi Annan, the
former UN Secretary-General, and Mbeki.
For all the
careful restraint of this policy down the years, there must be a
sense that
Britain could have done more at least in expressing its outrage
in the past
few years as Zimbabwe’s economic crisis accelerated. There
surely comes a
time when the disaster is so huge and so inescapable that it
punctures the
claims that any criticism is merely a ghostly echo of the
spirit of 30 years
ago.
These elections are surely that turning point. Even Mugabe’s
supporters –
even Mbeki – have to acknowledge the straits the country is in.
If there are
signs that Mugabe has rigged the election result, then no sense
of colonial
past should inhibit Britain from calling loudly for other
countries to club
together against him.
The Times, SA
Werner Swart
Published:Apr 01,
2008
Security
forces’ first loyalty is to party
President Robert Mugabe faces the
possibility of being purged from his own
party, political analysts said
yesterday.
This is due to the strong showing by the main
opposition in Zimbabwe, which
has made this the most difficult election ever
for Mugabe to steal.
The seemingly overwhelming support for the Movement
for Democratic Change
might be too much of a hurdle for him to overcome,
even if the elderly
president “tries to cheat” his way to
victory.
Political analyst Daniel Silke said the future of the
84-year-old looks
bleak. He said that, with the results showing a tighter
race than ever
before, it would be more difficult for Zanu-PF to massage the
results.
“It might happen that Mugabe’s own people decide ‘enough is
enough’, that he’s
had his day and it’s time to move on. I am sure the rest
of the Zanu-PF’s
leadership would want to continue in one form or another.
For this to
happen, Mugabe has to be removed internally,” Silke
said.
He said Zimbabwe’s security forces, which pledged their unequivocal
support
to Zanu-PF before the elections, were in a situation similar to that
in
which the ruling party finds itself.
“The atmosphere is no doubt
extremely tense and, if the tide turns, the
military might also turn. Its
role is to make sure that Zanu- PF is in
power — which does not necessarily
mean that Mugabe has to be.”
According to Silke, Zanu-PF might be buying
time to plan its exit strategy
by delaying the announcement of the final
results. He said the government
probably realises that it can no longer rig
the poll.
“This will lead to further unrest … [ it] could lead to
protests and
violence,” Silke warned.
Independent analyst Harald
Pakendorf said it was to be expected that the MDC
would lead at first
because vote counting in rural areas tends to take
longer.
Pakendorf
said: “It’s in those areas that we will see the fraud. This is
where Mugabe
will try to steal the election. Whether he gets it right this
time is
another thing.”
Pakendorf agreed that Zanu-PF might turn against
Mugabe.
“The time is right for the other leaders to stand up and say they
are better
off without him. It is a strong possibility.”
VOA
By Jonga Kandemiiri, Patience Rusere and Netsai Mlilo
Washington, Bulawayo
31 March 2008
The slow pace
at which the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has been working
its way through
the compilation of results from an election that ended
Saturday at 7 p.m.
has frustrated Zimbabweans and provoked widespread
concern and suspicion as
to the reasons for the delay and what may be taking
place behind the
scenes.
Chairman Lovemore Madhuku of the National Constitutional Assembly
offered a
worst-case scenario, saying the delay in processing results is
intended to
prepare Zimbabwe for a decision handing victory to President
Mugabe and his
ZANU-PF party.
Nonetheless, Madhuku told reporter
Patience Rusere of VOA's Studio 7 for
Zimbabwe that the opposition should
allow ZEC to finish giving results
before issuing their own to avoid setting
a precedent for parties to set up
their own compilation
processes.
Elsewhere, the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa
expressed its concern
at the slow progress in tabulation by the Zimbabwean
electoral authority.
The institute said the slow drip of results has
heightened fears that
rigging is going on behind the scenes. The institute,
which sent 25 election
observers to Zimbabwe, said the elections were only
partly free, lacked
transparency, and had not been fair.
Institute
Executive Director Denis Kadima, who returned to Johannesburg from
Harare on
Monday, told reporter Jonga Kandemiiri of VOA's Studio 7 for
Zimbabwe that
regional observers have also chosen not to speak up about the
delay.
A spokesman for the Southern African Development Community’s
observer
mission to Zimbabwe, Charles Mubita, said his body cannot comment
on the
counting process as that falls outside its mandate, which is
restricted to
the voting process itself.
Bulawayo was on edge Monday
as residents waited impatiently for official
election results. Anxiety
turned to confusion and disbelief when the
Electoral Commission eventually
started to issue tallies. Correspondent
Netsai Mlilo reported.
BBC
18:12 GMT, Monday, 31 March 2008
The BBC is banned from operating in Zimbabwe, but our correspondent
Ian
Pannell has entered the country. We cannot disclose his location for
security reasons.
Zimbabwe and its people are in a state of
suspense, waiting for election
results that will decide the fate of this
blighted country.
The air is thick with expectation and with rumour. The
parts of the country
we have seen are very calm and, in some cases,
unusually quiet.
For security reasons, I cannot reveal our location but
the people we have
come across have been friendly and ready to speak
out.
They do not seem tense, that surprised me. When you talk to them,
they are
overwhelmingly confident, it is a triumph of optimism over
circumstance that
people feel that really that this time will be the time
for change.
In most cases they have volunteered an opinion - and,
invariably, it has
been the same one: that Robert Mugabe and his party have
been roundly beaten
in the polls and now the president must leave
office.
There are also plenty of rumours - that perhaps he has fled, what
the police
and the army will do next - but all uninformed rumour that seems
to be
swirling around in essentially what is a vacuum in the country because
all
media sources are controlled by the government.
Only people who
have access to satellite television or sporadic facilities
with the internet
are able to access sources outside the country.
Hope for
change
Travelling across the country, you get a sense of what it is that
has driven
people into the arms of the opposition.
It is fields
without crops, shops without goods, petrol stations that are
low or empty,
women at the side of the road begging for food and traders
desperate for
customers and hard currency.
Two words crop up in conversation again and
again - hope and change.
People say they have voted for change, now they
hope the president will
stand to one side.
But they also know he is a
man who does not like to lose and there have been
false dawns before now in
Zimbabwe.
When you put it to them "What happens if the president does not
go?", this
seems an idea they do not seem willing to entertain.
There
is also a concern that the longer the results are delayed, the greater
the
chances are of violence.
Independent, UK
By Daniel Howden
Tuesday, 1 April 2008
The abandoned brick
kilns outside Bulawayo are a fitting backdrop to begin a
journey through a
ruined country. The derelict ovens and chimneys have been
picked apart for
anything that could be salvaged or sold. The blackened
rubble that remains
stretches for half a mile along the road to the capital,
Harare, offering
some shelter or a place to sleep for those who begin
waiting for a lift from
first light.
The lay-bys are like campsites, with crowds of arms
beseeching the few
passing vehicles to pull over and load up. Women carry
babies strapped to
their backs and crushing sacks of maize, children play in
the dirt and the
men sit and wait.
Nelson is the first to join me on
the road outside Gweru. He's on his way to
work as a security guard at a
bank and as one of the few people in the
country to still have a job he
might have been expected to vote for the
ruling party. But he hasn't. Like
everyone else you can find he voted for
Morgan Tsvangirai and he's getting
worried at the long wait. "I heard on the
radio that they announced five
seats. After two days they announce five
seats. Last time they told us after
three hours." What does Nelson want to
hear? I ask. "I want a new president.
We need a new president. It has to be
Morgan."
All along the road I
hear echoes of that same sentiment from voters. And as
the pink permanent
ink fades from their fingers, the impatience for a result
is growing. Even a
toothless grandmother who speaks only Shona manages to
make her feelings
clear. She gestures at a defaced poster of the 28-year
President and lets
out a hateful hiss. We have understood each other.
There are police
everywhere along the highway. Aside from the roadblocks
that welcome you in
and out of the larger towns, there are officers in green
fatigues and soft
hats waiting by the roadside. The decision to man every
one of the 9,000
polling stations in the country with uniformed police –
against electoral
law – has stretched the force and they too must make their
way home
now.
Heavy rains in December have restored some of the lustre to
Zimbabwe's
landscape but their legacy, like everything else here, is
complicated. The
heavy rains flooded the winter cereal crop and washed away
topsoil, so while
the bush is green and the dams are filled, stomachs and
pockets will stay
empty.
On the outskirts of Harare there are two
sets of roadblocks within half a
kilometre of each other. The questions are
perfunctory: Where are you going?
Where is your licence? And the vehicle
search is routine rather than tense.
A stone's throw from the second
roadblock, posters of the Liberator stare
down from the lampposts. Even with
his fist raised he struggles to impress.
Someone has spent hours going to
each of the posters and painting over
Mugabe's famous, ageless features with
lurid yellow paint.