Harare

Two British journalists arrested for working without accreditation in Zimbabwe are bracing for jail terms of up to two years if found guilty at a trial expected to conclude next week. Some experts say the two may be fined and deported immediately from Zimbabwe, but others warn that the authorities might seek to make an example of them.

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, chairperson of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission George Chiweshe denied accusations that the organisation had ”fiddled the results” of parliamentary elections on March 31.

President Robert Mugabe has defied a European Union travel ban and flown out of Harare unannounced to join world leaders attending Pope John Paul II’s funeral in Rome, state radio announced on Thursday. The trip was immediately denounced by one of Mugabe’s fiercest critics, Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo.

Two reports issued on Wednesday reinforced concern that Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party won last week’s parliamentary election through fraud. A report by observers from the United States embassy said there were ”several patterns of irregularities”.

President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party has threatened to seize commercial companies it says are trying to provoke food riots in the wake of last week’s parliamentary elections. Trade Minister Samual Mumbengegwi said manufacturers and retailers who raised prices should revert to previous levels because the increases had not been approved.

The South African embassy in Harare denied knowledge on Monday of alleged brutal treatment of 67 citizens held in prison in that country on mercenary charges. Die Beeld newspaper quoted a friend of one of the alleged mercenaries on Monday as saying the men have been without running water for nearly a month, and were covered in lice.

The just-ended Zimbabwean parliamentary elections saw a flurry of humorous SMS messages before, during and after the key vote poking fun at the main parties and players and their policies. Supporters of the country’s main rival parties had their own wordsmiths crafting clever jokes, often taking digs at themselves.

Zimbabwean ambassador to South Africa Simon Khaya Moyo on Saturday criticised British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw’s statement, saying it was ”irresponsible and irrelevant”. Straw said the parliamentary election in Zimbabwe was marked by irregularities and was not free and fair.

An elections observer mission from a key regional grouping raised concerns on Friday over the number of people who were turned away from polling stations during voting in Zimbabwe. Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, an elections monitoring group, said it estimated that 25% of voters had been turned away from the polls nationwide.

Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on Friday made a strong early showing in elections, taking more than a quarter of contested seats in Parliament, the electoral commission said. The MDC won 31 seats in its urban strongholds.

President Robert Mugabe on Thursday predicted a landslide victory for his ruling party in elections that the opposition in Zimbabwe charged were not free and fair despite a campaign that broke away from the political violence of the past five years. He dismissed opposition concerns of election fraud as ”nonsense”.

Zimbabweans were holding landmark elections on Thursday that President Robert Mugabe hopes will tighten his ruling party’s 25-year grip on power after weeks of campaigning. Under an early-morning drizzling rain, thousands of people could be seen queueing at polling stations in Harare.

Zimbabweans waited in long lines on Thursday to cast ballots in parliamentary elections that President Robert Mugabe hopes will prove the legitimacy of a regime critics say is increasingly isolated and repressive. Despite a light rain, residents in Harare started gathering at the polls up to three hours before they opened.

President Robert Mugabe’s government has increased the minimum wage for domestic servants tenfold. A labour union official said the sudden increase will lead to mass unemployment, and the opposition called it an attempt to drive a wedge between urban employers, thought to support the opposition, and their employees.

As Zimbabwe’s elections draw near, President Robert Mugabe has ratcheted down the violence and intimidation that have cowed dissent, hoping he can win a stamp of legitimacy. But he has lashed out at Archbishop Pius Ncube, calling him a half-wit a day after the cleric called for a peaceful uprising against Mugabe.

Zimbabwe’s new electoral court has reversed one of its very first judgements allowing a jailed opposition lawmaker to run in elections in his constituency that were to have been held at the end of April, state media reported on Sunday.

Zimbabwe’s opposition is steeling itself for defeat in this week’s parliamentary elections as new allegations emerge of plans to rig the ballot. Veteran observers such as Pius Ncube, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, believe the opposition has already lost the election.

Bulawayo’s outspoken Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube has openly called for a Ukraine-style ”peaceful popular mass uprising” by Zimbabweans to oust President Robert Mugabe, the Sunday Independent newspaper reported. Commenting on Thursday’s poll, Ncube said: ”No way will elections kick him out.

President Robert Mugabe’s party has dubbed this week’s elections in Zimbabwe an opportunity to ”bury Blair”, claiming the British premier is the puppet-master of the MDC. At a rally Mugabe told supporters: ‘You will be lost if you vote for the opposition because it would be as good as voting Blair into power.’

As the election approaches, the Zimbabwean government has taken sole control of food distribution in rural areas. Observers say these elections will bring less of the outright brutality that scarred previous polls. According to accounts, the government party Zanu-PF is offering villagers a simple choice — vote for us or starve.

Supporters of President Robert Mugabe’s 25-year rule locked horns on Tuesday with opposition members in the only public campaign debate before the parliamentary elections on March 31. The stormy session, marked by catcalls and slow hand claps, ended with a walkout by members of Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party.

Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court has thrown out a plea by a group representing more than three million expatriates demanding the right to vote in the March 31 parliamentary elections, a state-run daily reported on Friday. There are an estimated 3,5-million Zimbabweans living abroad.

As the world focuses on the upcoming Zimbabwean elections, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) on Thursday released startling new statistics that call for politicians and donors to defend children as rigorously as they defend democracy. ”The world must differentiate between the politics and the people of Zimbabwe,” said Unicef executive director Carol Bellamy.

President Robert Mugabe’s government said on Tuesday that it will not let Zimbabwe’s main trade union federation monitor crucial elections this month, charging that it is an agent of former colonial ruler Britain and that it has ”biased and preconceived ideas about the outcome of the elections”.

With about two weeks to go before key elections in Zimbabwe, some rights groups and the police say the campaign thus far has been largely spared of the political violence that marred the 2000 and 2002 polls. The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change, however, maintains that a campaign of intimidation continues unabated.

Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court on Monday quashed a ban on the independent Daily News newspaper, known for its anti-government line, but upheld a controversial media law that has forced three other newspapers to close down. The paper’s former legal secretary, Gugulethu Moyo, slammed the court’s decision.

Jailed Zimbabwean opposition lawmaker Roy Bennett on Thursday lost a court bid to win his release on the eve of this month’s parliamentary elections. Bennett, one of three white Zimbabweans who hold seats in Parliament, is serving a one-year prison term for shoving the justice minister during a heated debate in Parliament.