From Associated Press, 31 March
Harare - Zimbabwe's
Electoral Commission belatedly began annnouncing
official results Monday of
elections in which the opposition party claims to
have trumped President
Robert Mugabe, after a delay that heightened fears of
rigging and brought
security forces onto the streets. In an early-morning
nationwide broadcast
on radio and television, the deputy chief elections
officer, Utoile
Silaigwana, declared results of six parliament seats - three
for Mugabe's
ruling party, three for the opposition. Then he went off the
air saying
«We'll be back with you when we have more results. The piecemeal
announcement could not be explained since election observers have said some
initial results were known as early as 11 p.m. Saturday night, some four
hours after polls closed.In previous elections, partial results have been
announced within hours of voting ending.
"Clearly the delay is
fueling speculation that something might be going on,"
said Noel Kututwa,
chairman of the network that includes 38 civic, church
and other groups.
Voting in Saturday's elections - which presented Mugabe,
84, with the
toughest challenge ever to his 28-year rule - was generally
peaceful. They
hinged on the destroyed economy, with inflation soaring
beyond 100,500
percent. Running against Mugabe is chief opposition leader
Morgan
Tsvangirai, 55, who narrowly lost disputed 2002 elections, and former
ruling
party loyalist and finance minister Simba Makoni, 58. If no
presidential
candidate wins 50 percent plus one vote, there will be a
runoff.
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change said he was leading the
presidential race with 67 percent of votes, basing its unofficial count on
returns from 35 percent of polling stations nationwide. The party also
claimed to have taken some of Mugabe's rural strongholds. The claims were
based on results posted overnight on the doors of polling
stations.
Security and government officials loyal to Mugabe have
warned Tsvangirai
against declaring a victory. "It is called a coup d'etat
and we all know how
coups are handled," chief presidential spokesman George
Charamba was quoted
as saying in the state-controlled Sunday Mail newspaper.
Sources within the
ruling party said Mugabe was consulting with his security
chiefs Sunday
night amid fears of how they might react to any news of his
defeat. The
chiefs all have said they would serve only Mugabe. Western
diplomats report
that many younger army officers showed open defiance of
orders they had to
vote for Mugabe. The diplomats spoke on condition of
anonymity. On Sunday,
commission chairman Judge George Chiweshe was forced
to flee from a Harare
hotel after he was mobbed by journalists and ordinary
people. "We want
results," they yelled. "This has been a more complicated
election," Chiweshe
said. «We will be releasing the results as soon as we
can.» He said it was
taking time because Zimbabweans - for the first time -
voted for president,
the two houses of Parliament and local councilors, so
four ballots have to
be counted for each voter instead of
one.
The head of the Pan-African Parliament observer mission warned
the delay was
creating "anxiety" and warned of a scenario similar to Kenya,
where a
delayed announcement of results from December elections so rigged
that no
one knows who won led to a spontaneous explosion of violence. More
than
1,000 people were killed. "These are the delays that start causing
problems," Marwick Khumalo, head of the Pan-African Parliament observers,
told South African Broadcasting Corp. TV. He said he was sure the electoral
commission knew most results. "It appears that the regime is at a loss about
how to respond" to its alleged defeat, said Tendai Biti, secretary-general
of the opposition party. Earlier, people celebrated in the streets, dancing,
singing and giving each other the openhanded wave that is the opposition
party's symbol. Mugabe's is a clenched fist. But by sundown, as frustrations
grew, riot police and other security forces were patrolling the capital's
densely populated suburbs, according to independent election
monitors.
Observers from the South African Democratic Alliance
opposition party said
accounts from observers and other sources indicated
the opposition «has won
a majority in most areas. "If this is not reflected
in the results, this
will be yet another indication that the election was
rigged," they added.
Observers from the Pan-African Parliament have
questioned thousands of names
on the official voter roll, and the government
has barred several
international media organizations and some observers from
the U.S. and
Europe. The Southern African Development Community's observer
mission said
it was concerned by threats made by the country's security
chiefs, delays in
producing the voters' roll, the presence of police
officers in polling
stations and lack of impartiality in the state media.
Nevertheless, those
observers told reporters the elections «were in general
a free expression of
the people of Zimbabwe. Mugabe has dismissed rigging
charges. US Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice branded Mugabe a "disgrace"
to all of Africa.
Reuters
Mon 31 Mar
2008, 7:59 GMT
HARARE, March 31 (Reuters) - Justice Minister Patrick
Chinamasa lost his
seat in Zimbabwe's election as latest official results on
Monday showed the
ruling ZANU-PF and opposition MDC running
neck-and-neck.
The electoral commission said each party had won 12
parliamentary
constituencies out of a total 210 seats. No official results
were yet
available in the presidential poll, in which Robert Mugabe faces
the
strongest challenge to his 28-year rule. (Reporting by Stella
Mapenzauswa)
Reuters
Mon Mar 31,
2008 6:34am BST
By Cris Chinaka
HARARE (Reuters) - Riot police
appeared on the streets of Zimbabwe's capital
after a long delay to election
results fuelled opposition suspicions that
President Robert Mugabe may try
and cling to power by rigging the vote.
Reuters journalists saw the riot
police in Harare late on Sunday and
residents in outlying poor townships
said they had seen stepped up patrols
by security forces.
"We have
been told to stay indoors," said a resident in the eastern suburb
of Tafara,
declining to be named.
Mugabe, 84, faced the biggest challenge of his
28-year-rule in Saturday's
election because of Zimbabwe's economic collapse
and a two-pronged
opposition attack that put him under unprecedented
political pressure.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
led by Morgan Tsvangirai
said it had won an overwhelming victory, but
electoral officials said no
official results would be released until 6 a.m.
(0400 GMT) on Monday, 35
hours after polls closed.
Results in past
votes have begun emerging soon afterwards.
The chairman of Zimbabwe's
electoral commission, 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.
All
results would be announced on Monday, he told reporters.
"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, " said MDC
Secretary-General
Tendai Biti.
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.
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.
"COUP ATTEMPT"
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.
SADC mission chairman Jose
Marcos Barrica of Angola told reporters through
an interpreter the election
"has been a peaceful and credible expression of
the will of the
people".
Mugabe 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 will enable him to
declare victory.
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.
The United States said it was worried by the conduct
of the election and the
absence of most international observers.
"The
Mugabe regime is a disgrace to the people of Zimbabwe and a disgrace to
southern Africa and to the continent of Africa as a whole," U.S. Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters during a visit to
Jerusalem.
Mens News Daily
March 31, 2008 at 12:06
am
A few weeks ago I stood in a small house in a local
high-density suburb
addressing a meeting of about 150 people crammed into
every corner. I said
to them that what we needed to end the crisis in
Zimbabwe was a political
Tsunami. I said a Tsunami could not be detected on
the open sea (during the
campaign) and when it reached the shore and rose up
like a mountain of
water, those on the beach got little or no warning. It
was silent and
totally destructive, sweeping away everything in its
path.
Right now (17.00 hrs on Sunday the 30th) the semi official tally is
103
seats to MDC and 5 to Zanu PF. The outcome of the election has been a
stunning victory for the MDC and Morgan Tsvangirai. Many of the strong holds
of Zanu PF have fallen to overwhelming MDC majorities. Makoni has performed
more or less to expectations - in fact did better than we anticipated -
especially in Matabeleland where he seems to have garnered about 30 per cent
of the vote. Nationally it looks like about 10 per cent.
It also
looks like a first round victory for Morgan with over 50 per cent of
the
national tally. Even here in Matabeleland where Makoni took votes away
from
him, his margin was 2 to 1 against Makoni and 10 to 1 against Mugabe.
The
Police have said to us in the MDC - you may not celebrate until the
official
results are known. In one of my polling stations when the returning
officer
announced 452 votes for Morgan Tsvangirai and 14 votes for Robert
Mugabe,
one of the policemen in the Station made a sort of gurgling sound
and
collapsed!
Yesterday was extraordinary - as I have said before, no more
than 2,8
million voters were active in Zimbabwe and I think we will see when
the
final tally comes out that a very high turnout was achieved. We knew
from
our own research that a high turn out would favor the opposition.
Observers
are saying that the turn out was low - but that is because they
are looking
at the voters roll against the turnout. In the rural areas the
numbers were
small - but still gave MDC a clear majority.
The
Mutambara group fared poorly - at this stage I know of only a few
candidates
who won their seats - David Coltart in the Khumalo senatorial
seat. He will
be insufferable - but it is good that we are not losing his
talents and
experience. Otherwise it looks as if the ratio of votes
Mutambara group to
Tsvangirai was at least 2 to 1 in Matabeleland and they
got nowhere in the
rest of the country. Both Welshman Ncube and Gibson
Sibanda lost their
seats. I am sure Mutambara will have been annihilated in
Harare.
In
my long career in opposition politics - first in the Smith era and then
later in the last 20 years of the Mugabe era, I have never voted for a
winner before! Quite an experience for me therefore to vote for 4 candidates
and have them all romp home. But I am the first to acknowledge that the
circumstances were exceptional. This was, as Morgan stated, a referendum on
the leadership of Mugabe.
What turned this election from a silent
surge of feeling in mid ocean, into
a tsunami? For a start it was the Mbeki
factor. Right from the start of
2007, Mr. Mbeki played a crucial role in
persuading his SADC colleagues to
recognise the MDC and to back reform of
the electoral process. They forced
Zanu PF to come to the negotiating table
and in 9 months of negotiations,
got a number of concessions agreed and
implemented. Frustrated at the very
end of the process, Mbeki then turned to
Makoni and sent him in to joust
with Mugabe. It was a clever and fatal move
and sunk the Mugabe ship in mid
ocean. But even Mbeki could not have
anticipated the size of the subsequent
MDC victory.
Meanwhile the
effects of the reforms agreed and implemented in Zimbabwe -
even though they
were limited, had started to work through the system. Here
the law of
unintended consequences came into play. The shift of electoral
power from
the Registrar Generals Office to the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission seemed to
Zanu PF to be a move that was without risk. After all,
had they not
appointed the Commission themselves and was not George
Chiweshe, the
chairman, a loyalist? In fact they completely underestimated
the dynamics of
the shift from Civil Service control under Mudede to the ZEC
under a
civilian Commission.
The Commission has played a crucial role - sticking
to its mandate to
administer the election within the guidelines of the
Electoral Act. They
actually frustrated several attempts by Mugabe to
implement last minute
changes to the electoral system and insisted on the
counting at the polling
stations - this opened the door to the MDC vote
count and reporting system
and prevented many of the rigging efforts that
had enabled Zanu PF to
dictate the outcome of previous
elections.
Then came the MDC state of preparedness - the consensus of the
media and
many other commentators was that the MDC was a spent force.
Divided and
confused, weakened by a year of relentless onslaught by the
authorities and
the departure of thousands of their key activists to South
Africa and
elsewhere. In fact, it stunned Zanu when the MDC was able to
field 2000
candidates at short notice and then come out fighting with a well
prepared
and financed campaign. The key to that was the support network
built up over
several years in the region and these hidden hero's are very
much
responsible for the activity everyone has seen in the past few weeks -
the
adverts, the flyers, the poster war and the funding for our
candidates.
Finally the anti rigging operation. We knew how they had
rigged previous
elections and we set out to try and stop a recurrence. The
whistle blower
campaign was a key part of that and we have had hundreds of
calls from all
quarters and several key "hits". The many people who climbed
in and said
"one more time" and spent days in the bush helping with the
count and the
reporting system are unsung heroes.
Then the people -
they had just had enough, had enough of arrogance and
being taken for
granted, enough of the suffering and destruction of the
economy. Their
steadfast faith in the electoral process and their refusal to
take to
violence. They chose to suffer in silence and then go out and vote.
For
me they are the real champions and I hope they will never again be taken
for
granted. I also hope they will hold their new leadership accountable for
the
trust they have given us.
Eddie Cross
30th March 2008
Independent, UK
By Daniel Howden
in Bulawayo
Monday, 31 March 2008
The writing was on the wall for
Robert Mugabe last night. It was pinned to
the side of polling tents, posted
on school fences and written on the walls
of community halls. The election
results that Zimbabwe's president had made
every effort to rig were coming
in against him.
First to go were his chief lieutenants as, one by one,
they lost their
parliamentary seats. The list read like a Who's Who of
corruption, fraud,
intimidation and robbery: Joyce Mujuru, the
vice-president and mistress of a
vast confiscated estate outside the
capital; Patrick Chinamasa the man who
perverted the justice system to serve
the regime; and Didymus Mutasa the man
who amassed millions of pounds worth
of stolen farms.
At least nine of Mr Mugabe's politburo, his inner
circle, were out of a job
according to official results posted at polling
stations in their own
constituencies.
As evidence emerged of what
appeared to be a landslide for opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai,
Zimbabwe's electoral commission – Mugabe placemen all –
were hiding out in
the capital, refusing to release results of the
presidential
poll.
What nobody could stop were independently verified, lawfully
reported
parliamentary and senate results as the count finished at each of
the 9,000
polling stations nationwide. And the early results were
stunning.
Provisional findings, leaked to The Independent last night by a
senior
source at the electoral commission, indicated that Mr Tsvangirai's
Movement
for Democratic Change had taken 191 of 210 parliamentary seats,
with the
remainder split between the ruling Zanu-PF and the smaller MDC
faction
backing the ruling party defector Simba Makoni.
Were those
results to be reflected in the presidential contest, as expected,
it would
deliver a resounding first round victory to Mr Tsvangirai, a former
union
leader, and bring down the curtain on the only president Zimbabwe has
ever
known.
There was not a word from the man who turned one of Africa's most
promising
economies into an impoverished, intimidated and emptying country.
Or from
the man who withstood beatings, imprisonment and death threats but
who, last
night, appeared set to replace him.
For that to happen, Mr
Tsvangirai would need to collect at least 51 per cent
of the vote, otherwise
the two leading candidates would go to a run-off in
three weeks'
time.
Throughout the day, state television ignored the most important
election
since independence in 1980, broadcasting a bizarre mixture of
cartoons,
church sermons and 1970s football matches.
At the MDC
headquarters in Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, the excitement
was
palpable as the whiteboards covering the flaking walls began to fill up
with
poll counts – numbers that could finally amount to change.
Into the
middle of the melee was Dorcas Sibanda, a single mother with four
young
children, and also one of the newly elected MDC MPs for Bulawayo. "In
my
constituency, [Mugabe] got nothing," she said. "We knew people had made
up
their mind, we went door to door, and people said he had to go. If he
won't
go, it will cause chaos, people know what has happened. He needs to
pack his
bags and leave the State House." Pausing for hugs and high-fives
with
colleagues, she continued: "They're going into the garbage dump of
history
where they belong."
Outside, a crowd began to gather and a pick-up truck
with speakers parked
near by to provide the soundtrack. Activists waved
flags and one of them
shouted: "This is what we wanted, the country has come
back to its owners."
Passing drivers honked their horns as people in MDC
T-shirts danced in the
traffic. An elderly white couple in a 4x4 rolled down
their windows to wave
at the dancers who saluted them in unison with their
arms raised.
A truck full of riot police rolled by showing little
interest, with one
officer even smiling at the party that was starting. The
head of the city's
riot police later returned to ask officials to tone down
celebrations,
promising an announcement later in the afternoon. By
nightfall, there was
still no word.
The official silence on the
result was stoking tension in the capital,
Harare, where police were
deployed in the poor townships. Security chiefs
gave their full backing to
the octogenarian president in the run-up to
Saturday's vote and warned that
they would not accept an opposition victory.
Even the limited observers
that the Mugabe regime had allowed to monitor the
election were yesterday
declaring serious problems in its conduct.
The head of the Pan-African
Parliament observer mission said he was sure
most results were known and
warned against a delay in releasing them.
"We are trying to exercise as
much constraint as possible so as not to
contribute to the deteriorating
security situation," said Noel Kututwa,
explaining why his Zimbabwe
Elections Support Network, an independent
monitoring organisation, was not
releasing any results. "Clearly the delay
is fuelling speculation that
something might be going on."
The silence was filled with wild rumours:
the "old man" had left the
country; the military had convened an emergency
council; Mr Tsvangirai would
declare victory.
One report that could
be confirmed was that a senior ruling party member,
Elliot Manica, had shot
and killed at least one person at a polling station
and had been placed
under arrest.
Previous elections have followed a similar pattern with
early results from
urban centres appearing to favour the opposition before
returns from rural
voters who make up three quarters of the electorate have
gone to the ruling
party.
David Coltart, who won a senate seat for
the smaller MDC faction that was
backing Mr Makoni, a Zanu defector and
former finance minister, sounded a
note of caution. "It looks like a
landslide for Morgan but Mugabe is
unpredictable," said Mr Coltart, a
respected white Zimbabwean lawyer.
And yet everywhere yesterday, people
were convinced that this time it would
be different. They ignored Mr
Mugabe's divide and rule on racial lines and
on seeing a white face on the
streets, smiling people would stand up at bus
stops or wave from windows,
all saying the same thing, "We are winning".
* The Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission today began long-delayed announcement of
official results of
presidential and legislative elections with the
opposition winning three of
the first six parliamentary seats declared.
Deputy chief elections officer
Utoile Silaigwana made the announcement,
broadcast live on state radio and
television, with the declaration of six
parliamentary seats - three for Mr
Mugabe's ruling party, three for the
opposition. AP
IOL
March 31
2008 at 09:07AM
By Stella Mapenzauswa
Harare -
Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (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 7am
(local time) 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 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 in 1980, 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 and
Aids epidemic
that has contributed to a steep decline in life expectancy.
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 chairperson Jose Marcos Barrica of Angola said 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 (DA),
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 spokesperson 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.