The ruling party conceded on Wednesday that opposition gains in local elections were ”a rude wake-up call” for its politicians, officials and campaigners.
Jonathan Moyo, a ruling party spokesperson who is also the government’s Information Minister, said victory by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in most weekend town council polls across the country were sobering and the ruling 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,” Moyo told the state Herald newspaper, a government mouthpiece.
”We can’t be mourning. It’s good we have gotten a rude wake up call” ahead of the next parliament elections in 2005, he said.
The opposition won control of 10 town councils in this weekend’s local elections, according to results released on Tuesday. The opposition MDC hailed the polls as a sign people were dissatisfied with the increasingly authoritarian government and worsening economic hardships.
The local elections in this troubled southern African country, which included races for two vacant parliament seats, were beset by low voter turnout and reports of political intimidation by members of the ruling party.
The opposition captured 134 council seats across the country to the ruling party’s 100.
The opposition also retained its parliament seat in central Harare, while the ruling party retained a seat in Makonde, a traditional stronghold of the ruling Zanu-PF.
Moyo said preoccupation over stalled talks between the ruling party and the opposition, to negotiate an end to the country’s political and economic crisis, caused some ruling party officials to lose focus ahead of the polls.
Debate and speculation on a possible ruling party successor to longtime ruler President Robert Mugabe (78) also hurt the party, he said.
Talks between the two main parties collapsed after the opposition refused to recognize Mugabe’s election for another six-year term in presidential polls last year.
Attempts to revive the talks as the economy crumbled this year have failed. Mugabe is demanding the opposition drop a court challenge to his re-election scheduled to begin the High Court on November 3.
The MDC has refused to drop the case and is demanding Mugabe step down.
Independent and foreign observers said Mugabe’s narrow win in the presidential poll was swayed by intimidation, corruption and vote rigging.
Zimbabwe is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980, with record inflation of 400%, one of the highest rates in the world. Soaring unemployment and acute shortages of hard currency, local money, food, gasoline, medicine and other imports are crippling the economy.
Opposition officials reported widespread intimidation of their supporters in the run-up to and during the elections. They also said ruling party campaigners were handing out food to voters in some areas in a bid to gain their support.
The state election commission dismissed those reports as ”exaggerated”. – Sapa-AP