Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s government intensified a crackdown against its political opponents on Monday, as the leader of the opposition prepared to return home to contest a run-off election. Journalists, union leaders and hundreds of political activists have been arrested since general elections in March.
Levels of organised violence and torture have escalated dramatically in the last fortnight in Zimbabwe amid mounting tensions over the country’s disputed elections, a coalition of doctors said on Friday. ”Since the last report on April 25, our members have reported a dramatic escalation in incidents of organised violence,” the coalition said.
Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) will not participate in a presidential run-off against Robert Mugabe, a top party official said on Thursday, after reports of escalating violence deepened a post-election crisis. The MDC believes its leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the outright majority in the March 29 election.
President Thabo Mbeki is expected to fly to Zimbabwe on Friday amid growing pressure on Robert Mugabe not to continue delaying a second round of the presidential election after he lost the first vote. The head of Zimbabwe’s election commission said this week that it might postpone the run-off by up to a year, effectively extending Mugabe’s rule.
The Zimbabwe opposition’s campaign to force the release of results from last month’s presidential election suffered a fresh blow on Tuesday when a call for a general strike went largely unheeded. Most shops and services were open for business as usual and an initial heavy security presence was eased.
Zimbabwe is in a state of crisis, the African National Congress (ANC) national working committee said on Monday. ”The ANC regards [the ruling] Zanu-PF as an ally. However, it is concerned with the state of crisis that Zimbabwe is in and perceives this as negative for the entire Southern African Development Community region,” said spokesperson Jesse Duarte.
Zimbabwe opposition supporters face the prospect of a heavy crackdown by security forces on Tuesday if they heed a call to launch a general strike to show their disgust at long-delayed election results. Police have been deployed throughout the country in anticipation of the strike.
Zimbabwe’s post-election crisis intensified on Monday after a high court judge threw out an opposition demand for the immediate release of results from the March 29 presidential polls. The opposition reacted angrily to the ruling, urging Zimbabweans to show their disgust at the hold-up by launching a general strike from Tuesday.
African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma on Tuesday criticised the delay in declaring the results of Zimbabwe’s presidential election. Zuma, the front-runner to become the next president of South Africa, indicated that ”keeping the nation in suspense … keeping the international community in suspense” was wrong.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) have demanded that the Zimbabwean presidential election results be announced. The two trade-union federations met in Johannesburg on Tuesday.
Zimbabweans go to the polls on Saturday hoping for an end to a chronic economic crisis that has condemned millions to grinding poverty and prompted the exodus of up to a third of the population. The joint presidential, legislative and local council polls come at a time when the country’s inflation rate has breached the 100 000% mark.
A former finance minister challenging Robert Mugabe for the presidency denied on Sunday he was a Western puppet and said such accusations were to divert attention from Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown. Simba Makoni is running as an independent candidate after being expelled from the ruling Zanu-PF party.
Zimbabwe’s main labour union on Sunday called on millions of Zimbabweans living and working in South Africa to go home to vote in the country’s March 29 elections, South Africa’s Talk Radio 702 reported. Zimbabweans will vote in presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections in two weeks.
Simba Makoni’s decision to enter the presidential race is a ploy by former colonial power Britain to divide Zimbabweans, a state-controlled newspaper reported President Robert Mugabe as saying on Wednesday. Mugabe told ruling Zanu-PF supporters at a rally that voters have to ”bury British regime-change schemes”, the Herald reported.
Reviving Zimbabwe’s moribund economy would require inflation-battered citizens to swallow the bitter pill of reduced state spending and higher interest rates to attract foreign cash, analysts say. The ousting of veteran President Robert Mugabe is essential to pave the way for reforms to put the country back on track, they believe.
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/ 13 January 2008
Kennedy Tsambo’s faith in Zimbabwe’s banking system finally hit breaking point over Christmas when he spent an ultimately fruitless three days queuing to withdraw cash in order to buy a bus fare home. ”This was not a donation that I was queuing for, it’s my own money which I should be able to withdraw as and when I like,” said the 37-year-old.
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/ 19 September 2007
Bread queues snaked their way outside supermarkets in the Zimbabwean capital Harare on Wednesday, where few people appeared to have heeded a call by unions for a two-day general strike. Traffic was heavy in the city centre, with minibuses heavily-loaded. Most banks, shops and stores were open for business.
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/ 16 September 2007
Zimbabwe’s main labour union will go ahead with a two-day strike next week despite government signals the wage freeze that triggered the protest would be relaxed, a top labour official said on Sunday. President Robert Mugabe’s government ordered a price freeze in June as part of ongoing efforts to stem rampant inflation, which is running above 7 600%.