Stakes high for Mugabe as voting begins

HARARE, JUNE 24. Zimbabwean began voting on Saturday in elections for a new Parliament, posing the biggest threat to the President, Mr. Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party since Independence in 1980. Voting in the two-day poll began shortly after 7 a.m. (local time), in over 4,000 polling stations across the southern African country.

The campaign for the vote has been scarred by violence that has drawn strong international condemnation. At least 30 people, most of them supporters of the Opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), have died since February. The MDC, formed seven months ago, has gained widespread support and observers say the party has a realistic chance of winning a majority of the 120 parliamentary seats up for grabs. Mr. Mugabe, whose presidency does not come up for a vote until 2002, can handpick a further 30 Members of Parliament.

The voting is taking place against a backdrop of murder, beatings, rape, abductions and arson throughout the country - a ``terror campaign'' designed to crush the Opposition, human rights organisations charged - and the often violent invasion and occupation of some 1,500 white-owned farms.

At least four policemen were standing by there, but there was no sign of tension and the police chatted jovially with mediapersons.

The MDC leader, Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai, 48, who was head of Zimbabwe's powerful Trade Union Congress, campaigned for the ouster of a governing team presiding over a ruined economy, with galloping inflation, high unemployment, frozen aid and a critical shortage of foreign aid hurting every Zimbabwean. - Reuters, AFP

Telegraph reports:

Mr. Mugabe has played many tricks to take unfair advantage of his rivals in the election - and there could be more to come during the voting. In the run-up to every poll, the Government redraws constituency boundaries and compiles a new electoral roll. Zanu- PF's fingerprints were all over last month's review.

To the astonishment of observers, Harare and Bulawayo, both Opposition strongholds, lost one constituency each despite the great population shift to the cities prevalent in all African countries. When international observers began arriving in the final fortnight, the official obstruction campaign moved into high gear. A cumbersome accreditation process was set up to delay the observers in Harare. Civic group teams were rejected wholesale.

Just 72 hours before polling day, the Government threw its own Electoral Supervisory Commission into disarray by limiting the number of monitors at polling stations to one. Then it yielded to pressure and raised the number to four. There will be further opportunity for trickery. Counting of votes does not begin until Monday and ballot boxes will stay in the polling stations until they are driven to counting centres on Sunday - without monitors.

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Section  : International
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