Mar
31
Zimbabwe’s contested election results
March 31, 2008 | Tagged Africa, Zimbabwe | 2 Comments
By Meryam
Defying the ban on election results announcements, Zimbabwe’s opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has reportedly heralded their victory in Saturday’s presidential elections. According to independent monitoring groups, returns at two-thirds of the polling stations gave MDC’s candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai 55% of the votes, while incumbent president Robert Mugabe had 36%.
More than 24 hours after the polls closed however, Zimbabwe’s Electoral Commission has not announced the results, while Mugabe threatened to treat any opposition claim to victory as a “coup d’etat”.
Robert Mugabe has been Zimbabwe’s head of state since 1980, and president since 1987. His regime has been characterized as violent and oppressive. His mismanagement of the economy has led to massive inflation and unemployment, leading to comments that Saturday’s elections for the Zimbabwean people were ‘a vote from the belly’.
To make it difficult for the government to reverse the results, the MDC is collating and releasing the official results from polling stations ahead of the Electoral Commission. It also has the backing of independent witnesses to the count, including groups such as the US-funded Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), which had observers at every polling station as the ballots were tallied.
It is believed that if African poll monitors, whom the Zimbabwe government allowed in while excluding western observers, endorse Tsvangirai’s victory then phone calls to Mugabe will come from regional leaders “appealing for him to go for the good of his country and theirs”.
Ordinary citizens dare not believe that Mugabe may be on his way out. “We want to believe but can’t quite,” said George Murangari, a Harare churchgoer. “We know he’s lost but we can’t say he’s lost until he admits it.” They reflect that Mugabe probably lost the 2002 elections to Tsvangirai before the Electoral Commission changed the numbers.
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I think the election commission is due to announce results anytime now, at 4 a.m. GMT.
well, everyone is still waiting for the full results to be announced.. the question seems to be whether mugabe will accept defeat or not.. if he doesn’t, i wonder whether violence will erupt, like the situation in kenya..