Harare | Friday
THE candidate of Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Eng Mudzuri, was elected mayor of the capital Harare in a vote held alongside the March 9-11 presidential poll, state media reported Friday.
Harare, like most of Zimbabwe’s cities, is a stronghold of the opposition whose leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, lost the presidential race to long-time ruler Robert Mugabe in a poll that drew international condemnation amid charges that it was marred by violence, intimidation and vote-rigging.
Mudzuri took 262 275 votes against 56 796 for his main rival, Amos Midzi of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF), and 3 457 votes for a third candidate, Billet Magara.
“It was naturally expected that we would win the mayoral election because our party enjoys a lot of support in urban areas,” MDC representative Learnmore Jongwe told the state-run newspaper The Herald.
“It is common knowledge that the election results in some parts of the country were rigged by Zanu-PF but it was not possible to rig elections in some urban areas.”
The capital has been without a mayor for nearly three years since Solomon Tawengwa, a senior figure in Mugabe’s party, was sacked for corruption in 1999.
Awaiting the long-delayed polls, Harare has since been governed by a government-appointed committee.
The MDC also won a municipal vote in the satellite town of Chitungwiza, 25 kilometres southeast of the capital, according to the weekly Independent newspaper.
The result more than 47 000 votes for the MDC’s Misheck Shoko to some 17 000 for the ZANU-PF candidate were not published by the state media.
The mayoral polls, like the presidential vote, were fraught with criticism, with opposition and civic organizations charging there had been insufficient voter education by the government-appointed body controlling the polls.
They pointed to potential confusion over the demarcation of the wards for the municipal polls and constituencies for the presidential elections.
Voting in both Harare and Chitungwiza was prolonged a day to cope with the huge lines of voters who waited outside polling stations.
The MDC opposition complained about a 30% reduction in the number of polling stations in the capital region from the total available for parliamentary elections in June 2000.
The opposition MDC won three mayoral elections in three different cities last year.
In the presidential race, official results announced Wednesday gave Mugabe 56% of the vote against 42% for opposition leader Tsvangirai.
The opposition leader had been tipped to win in free and fair elections and has rejected Mugabe’s declared victory. – AFP