President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party conceded this week that the opposition’s gains in last weekend’s municipal elections had given it ”a rude wake-up call”.
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, speaking for Zanu-PF, said the Movement for Democratic Change’s (MDC) victory in most of the contested towns was sobering and the party needed to examine the reasons for its losses.
”We should have seen it coming. The writing was on the wall, but somehow we did not read it,” he said in The Herald, a government mouthpiece.
The MDC won control of 10 town councils, and hailed its victory as a sign that people were dissatisfied with the authoritarian government and economic hardships.
Independent observers said the MDC had won despite the violence, sponsored by the state against its supporters, and Zanu-PF’s use of food to buy votes.
The MDC kept its parliamentary seat in a by-election in Harare Central. Zanu-PF held its seat in Makonde. The MDC won six of the seven contested executive mayoral posts, but lost in the midlands town of Kwekwe, where widespread intimidation and violence were reported by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, an independent observer group. The MDC also won 137 of the 222 council seats contested in 21 towns and cities.
Doctors confirmed that they had treated a large number of injured opposition supporters.
Diplomats said they saw food being used as a bribe for votes: millions of Zimbabweans are short of food.
”We saw the ruling party operate stands very close to polling stations where maize was sold at very low prices to people with Zanu-PF cards,” said a diplomat who observed the voting in Manica province.
”It was in clear violation of voting regulations and a cynical ploy to buy votes from hungry people. We also witnessed ruling party supporters being given preference in the voting queues.”
The low turnout at the weekend ranged from below 30% of registered voters to just 11% in some areas. Political analysts said this was a worrying trend, since it showed that people were losing faith in the democratic system.
Zanu-PF won a particularly dubious victory in the central city of Chegutu — near Mugabe’s birthplace, Zvimba — where all the council seats were uncontested because the opposition candidates were beaten and prevented from handing in their nomination papers.
Human right groups said Zanu-PF had won most seats in areas where the violence against the opposition was most prevalent — Norton, Marondera and Kwekwe. ”[These are the] areas where we have received large numbers of reports of violence from doctors who treated victims”, a rights activist said.
”To a certain extent violence does work, but even in most areas where violence was widespread, Zanu-PF still failed to win a majority of the seats,” the activist added.
The strong showing by the MDC will strengthen its position in forthcoming negotiations with Zanu-PF about Zimbabwe’s future. — Â