Zimbabwe’s opposition leader on Friday slammed elections in the country as a ”massive fraud” as results showed that President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party was closing in on his party’s early lead in results from parliamentary polls.
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won 31 of the 120 contested seats while Mugabe’s Zimbawe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) took 32, with rural constituencies favouring the ruling party.
”This [is] disgusting massive fraud,” said MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai in an interview. ”For people to even claim that this is a democratic process is simply not acceptable.”
Tsvangirai said there were discrepancies between the number of voters and the final tally from results announced by the Zimbabwe Elections Commission.
In the constituency of Manyame near the capital Harare, where Mugabe’s nephew Patrick Zhuwao defeated the MDC incumbent, Tsvangirai said there was a gap of 10 000 votes between the number of voters and the results announced.
Tsvangirai accused Mugabe of treating Zimbabwe like ”his private property” and said the president ”is going to do what he wants” to win a two-thirds majority in parliament that would allow him to change the constitution.
”He is going to do what he wants, this is his private property and for people to even claim that this is a democratic process, when it is so fraudulent, is totally not acceptable,’ he said.
Partial results handed the MDC seats in Harare and in Zimbabwe’s second city of Bulawayo while Mugabe’s Zanu-PF was leading in rural areas, notably the northern Mashonaland region.
Turnout was below 50% during voting on Thursday, which passed off peacefully, in marked contrast with the previous elections in 2000 and 2002 when scores were killed and beaten in political violence. Mugabe, in power since Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, dismissed charges of fraud as ”nonsense” after he cast his ballot on Thursday, adding that he was ”absolutely confident” of winning a two-thirds majority for his Zanu-PF.
”Everybody is seeing that these are free and fair elections,” said the 81-year-old leader. The elections were being closely watched to gauge whether Mugabe will live up to a commitment to hold a free and fair vote, in accordance with guidelines for democratic polls agreed last year by
regional leaders.
Election observers from a southern African regional grouping raised concerns over the number of people turned away at polling stations during voting while also asserting that the elections were ”conducted in an open, transparent and professional manner.”
”It is still not clear to us exactly how many people were affected in this way as well as the reason for them not being able to cast their vote,” said a statement from the observer mission of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC).
The Zimbabwe Election Support Network, an elections monitoring group, said it estimated that 25% of voters had been turned away from polling stations nationwide, with the highest number prevented from voting in the Midlands area and Harare.
About 200 women arrested in Harare for holding a prayer vigil after the polls closed were ordered to pay fines on Friday for breaching Zimbabwe’s security laws and were to be released, a spokesperson said.
In the last parliamentary vote in 2000, the MDC picked up 57 seats while Zanu-PF got 62, but under Zimbabwean law, the president directly appoints 30 members of parliament, meaning that the ruling party was able to command a strong majority in parliament.
To win in this election, the MDC would have to gain 76 seats compared to only 46 for Zanu-PF, which can again rely on presidential appointments to pad its majority in parliament.
In his campaign, Mugabe accused the MDC of colluding with British Prime Minister Tony Blair to try to recolonise Zimbabwe but Tsvangirai responded that the leader was out of touch with the average Zimbabwean’s problems.
Once considered the breadbasket of southern Africa, Zimbabwe is facing food shortages with the government admitting for the first time last month that it would begin importing mielie meal, the national staple, to feed some 1,5-million needy Zimbabweans.
The food shortages are partly blamed on Mugabe’s land reform programme that saw thousands of white-owned farms seized and distributed to landless blacks five years ago.
About 5,8-million Zimbabweans were registered to vote in the elections, Zimbabwe’s sixth parliamentary vote since independence.
Britain says election ‘seriously flawed’
On Friday British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called the elections ”seriously flawed”, saying Zimbabwe’s people have been denied a free and fair chance to vote.
”The full results of Zimbabwe’s parliamentary elections are not yet clear, but what is clear is that the elections were seriously flawed,” said Straw in a statement issued by the Foreign Office in London.
He added that Mugabe ”has yet again denied ordinary Zimbabweans a free and fair opportunity to vote, further prolonging the political and economic crisis he has inflicted on their country”.
Britain, the former colonial power in Zimbabwe, has led international criticism of Mugabe’s government. The president in turn accuses London of meddling in the country’s affairs.
Straw said the British government will be making a full statement ”once all the results are known and we have assessed all available reports”.
”But credible observers have noted that although there was less violence than during the 2000 and 2002 elections, harassment and intimidation by the ruling party and the government continued,” he said.
”There was some improvement in the mechanics of voting. But the voters’ roll was severely compromised and thousands were turned away. The electoral commission was neither independent nor effective.”
DA: Elections ‘far from satisfactory’
The Democratic Alliance member of the South African parliamentary observer mission Roy Jankielsohn called the Zimbabwe elections far from satisfactory,
”Nobody should be misled by the fact that voting day yesterday [Thursday] in Zimbabwe appears to have run smoothly,” he said in a statement.
The fact that election day was reportedly the calmest since independence is to be welcomed, but should not be allowed to mask the true reality of an election that was carefully manipulated to the extent that it cannot be considered a proper expression of the democratic will of the people of Zimbabwe.
”A blind focus on events on election day gives a false sense of the democratic crisis that exists in Zimbabwe,” Jankielsohn said.
Ever since its power was first threatened in the late 1990s, Zanu-PF has created an oppressive legislative and biased constitutional environment that stacks the cards heavily in its favour.
”It has also facilitated a sustained climate of violence and intimidation, with many NGOs and individual citizens informing us of how they had been attacked or intimidated by ruling-party members.
”We were also informed of how the last four-and-a-half years have had a chilling effect on the population, especially in rural areas, where the very real fear exists of violent reprisals if an area votes against the ruling party. We were also told about the use of food as a political tool, with ruling-party candidates having acted as food distributors.”
Jankielsohn said a number of other factors have also cast doubt on the freeness or fairness of the poll, including the governing party’s total control of the state media, the lack of independent radio or television stations, and the fact that the state media are used as a platform to demonise the opposition.
Credible reports of voters’ rolls packed with non-existent voters are also case for concern, while limited independent voter education, insufficient numbers of observers, and an electoral commission that was established far too late to function effectively are critical factors that need to be considered by observers.
”The challenge now is for the countries of the region, and for South Africa in particular, to consider these factors before they legitimise what was a far from satisfactory election,” he said.
Journalist held
Meanwhile, a television correspondent for Swedish public broadcaster SvT was held on Friday by police in Zimbabwe, Swedish Television reported.
It was the second time this week that Fredrik Sperling, who was accredited to cover the parliamentary elections, ran into trouble with the authorities.
On Wednesday, he was questioned for several hours at a police station after filming outside a farm previously owned by a white commercial farmer.
Sperling told colleagues he expects to be deported after having been stripped of his media accreditation. — AFP, Sapa-DPA, Sapa