Zimbabwe’s pro-democracy opposition on Friday dismissed as a ”cover-up” the explanation offered by the country’s election boss of discrepancies in voting figures.
On Thursday, chairman of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and high court judge George Chiweshe denied accusations that the organisation had ”fiddled the results” of parliamentary elections on March 31.
He said the only figures that were relevant were the final results after the count that went on for nearly three days. ”The question of inconsistencies does not arise,” he said.
The organisation gave President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party 78 out of 120 contested seats, 41 to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and one to independent Jonathan Moyo.
Mugabe appoints another 30 members of parliament through a controversial constitutional dispensation.
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the United States, Britain and Australia have condemned the election for being neither free nor fair, while Zimbabwe’s neighbours have declared them ”a legitimate reflection of the will of the people”.
The MDC on Wednesday handed to the commission a report which asserts that ”massive rigging took place in the vote”.
The report was backed by videotapes of official election announcements last week, showing differences of up to 16 000 between the final number of votes cast after polls closed and the combined totals of the ballots for each candidate after the count.
The electoral commission announced final numbers of votes cast in 72 constituencies, then abruptly stopped. In 30 of these constituencies, MDC reports said, there were discrepancies, all of them where Zanu-PF was declared the winner.
One of the first results, in Manyame constituency just west of Harare, gave Mugabe’s nephew Patrick Zhuwao 15 000 votes against the MDC candidate’s 8 000 votes. However, the commission had announced earlier that a total of only 13 000 ballots had been cast.
On Wednesday, the US reported that its 35 observer teams had seen police and ruling-party election agents take over the counting process, police communicating results over police radios to the electoral commission and destroying notes on their conduct as well as driving away opposition agents.
Mugabe (81) and his ruling Zanu-PF party have ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980. — Sapa-dpa