Report from Zimbabwe elections
Eric | 01.04.2008 15:57
What a dramatic two days this has been. With voting over in the allotted
12 hours, counting has taken another 72 hours and in some cases the
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission is still verifying the vote results. In a
dramatic development the political masters in Zanu PF tried to force ZEC
to declare Mugabe the winner with 53 per cent of the vote and a Zanu PF
majority of 115 seats
12 hours, counting has taken another 72 hours and in some cases the
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission is still verifying the vote results. In a
dramatic development the political masters in Zanu PF tried to force ZEC
to declare Mugabe the winner with 53 per cent of the vote and a Zanu PF
majority of 115 seats
.
This information was sent to us by elements in Zanu PF and we made the
plan public at a press conference at 10.00 hrs today. But once again the
ZEC has come up trumps - they refused to gerrymander the results and are slowly releasing the final results to the public. This appears to be an
effort to give the Zanu PF people a chance to "clean house" in advance
of what will be a fairly rapid transfer of power once the final figures
for the Presidential election are announced.
It would seem that the last minute desperate measures to frustrate a MDC victory was made late yesterday and last night but has faded by this
morning. The best indication of that is that the heavy police presence
evident last night has faded and there are no police or army units on
the street today.
So at last it looks as if the ZEC will eventually announce that Morgan
Tsvangirai has won this election - I personally expect the final ZEC
tally to be 58 per cent for Morgan Tsvangirai, 27 per cent for Mugabe
and 15 per cent for Simba Makoni. I also expect that the final tally in
terms of the Parliamentary seats will be 115 for MDC, 12 for the
Mutambara group, 8 independents and 75 for Zanu PF. It is clear that
many of the Zanu PF seats were in fact rigged in their favor but ZEC is
accepting this as it was what I call "micro rigging" - in the sense that
they manipulated the numbers of people voting.
There were many ways in which they could do this - threats against the
population - "vote Zanu PF or else", multiple voting in remote areas
where there was insufficient supervision, the postal ballot and moving
people into key constituencies. We will have to look at all of these and
decide which we will take to court once the dust has settled.
But there can be no doubt this was a huge upset. Zanu seems to have been dislodged by a variety of factors. They gerrymandered the electoral
districts giving the rural vote (their traditional source of power) a 2
to 1 advantage over the urban voter. Then they gerrymandered the voter's roll and the distribution of polling stations. These measures were
overcome by two essential elements - a very high turn out of the voters
in urban areas (30 per cent of the voters roll but probably 65 per cent
of the actual number of registered voters that are still here) and a
very low turn out in rural districts (15 per cent or less). They also
underestimated the Makoni factor and he did much better than expected.
This was a referendum on Mugabe's leadership and even with all the
rigging and gerrymandering, he is now just so unpopular that he could
not be rescued. I doubt if he got 10 per cent of the vote, nationwide.
What we have witnessed in the last 24 hours are the last kicks of a
dying dynasty. I wonder what is going on right now behind those closed
doors!
Eddie Cross
31st March 2008
From Denese in Zimbabwe For those who are interested, this website is publishing results - but not sure how often they are updating it ............
http://www.zimelectionresults.com/
Zimbabwe headed for runoff amid fraud allegations
Cris Chinaka, Reuters Published: Tuesday, April 01, 2008
HARARE -- Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai will beat President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe's crucial election, but be forced into a runoff vote in three weeks, according to a ruling party projection.
Two ZANU-PF party sources said on Tuesday the projection showed Mr. Tsvangirai falling short of the 51% needed for outright victory. It was similar to projections by an independent monitoring group.
No official results have yet emerged on Saturday's presidential poll. The opposition charges that the delay veils attempts by Mr. Mugabe to hang on to power by rigging the vote.
Mr. Mugabe, in power for 28 years, faced his most formidable challenge in the election, with both Mr. Tsvangirai and third candidate Simba Makoni, a former finance minister, accusing him of reducing the population to misery by wrecking Zimbabwe's economy.
Official results on Tuesday showed ZANU-PF with a narrow lead of two seats in the parliamentary poll with 131 out of 210 constituencies declared. But a breakaway opposition party took another five seats.
A third government minister lost his seat and results showed the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) making some inroads into Mr. Mugabe's traditional rural strongholds.
Two senior government sources who asked not to be named said their projections showed Mr. Tsvangirai getting 48.3%, against Mr. Mugabe's 43%, with Mr. Makoni taking 8%.
"What this means is that we are looking at a re-run because he did not win with a margin of over 51% that would have given him the job straight away," one of the sources said.
A projection by the independent Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) had Mr. Tsvangirai taking 49.4% and Mr. Mugabe 41.8% with Mr. Makoni at 8.2%.
The opposition is expected to unite behind one candidate if there is a runoff, which would be held three weeks after last Saturday's election.
A senior Western diplomat told Reuters a re-run was likely.
"We can all speculate about what they (ZANU-PF) did or did not do. But when you look at some of the projections by other observers, such as ZESN, they are pointing to a re-run," he said.
Zimbabweans are suffering the world's highest inflation of more than 100,000%, food and fuel shortages, and an HIV/AIDS epidemic that has contributed to a steep decline in life expectancy.
The MDC says the unprecedented delay in issuing presidential results indicates Mr. Mugabe is trying to stave off defeat by fraud. Electoral authorities said they were still collating and verifying returns.
"It is now clear that there is something fishy. The whole thing is suspicious and totally unacceptable," MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said.
Seven European countries and the United States called on Zimbabwe's Electoral Commission to quickly release the results.
"This would end the current uncertainty and prevent the risk of rising tensions," the EU's Slovenian presidency said in a statement.
The MDC said unofficial tallies showed Mr. Tsvangirai had 60% of the presidential vote, twice the total for Mr. Mugabe.
"In our view, as we stated before, we cannot see the national trend changing. This means the people have spoken, they've spoken against the dictatorship," MDC Secretary-General Tendai Biti said.
Reuters © 2008
This information was sent to us by elements in Zanu PF and we made the
plan public at a press conference at 10.00 hrs today. But once again the
ZEC has come up trumps - they refused to gerrymander the results and are slowly releasing the final results to the public. This appears to be an
effort to give the Zanu PF people a chance to "clean house" in advance
of what will be a fairly rapid transfer of power once the final figures
for the Presidential election are announced.
It would seem that the last minute desperate measures to frustrate a MDC victory was made late yesterday and last night but has faded by this
morning. The best indication of that is that the heavy police presence
evident last night has faded and there are no police or army units on
the street today.
So at last it looks as if the ZEC will eventually announce that Morgan
Tsvangirai has won this election - I personally expect the final ZEC
tally to be 58 per cent for Morgan Tsvangirai, 27 per cent for Mugabe
and 15 per cent for Simba Makoni. I also expect that the final tally in
terms of the Parliamentary seats will be 115 for MDC, 12 for the
Mutambara group, 8 independents and 75 for Zanu PF. It is clear that
many of the Zanu PF seats were in fact rigged in their favor but ZEC is
accepting this as it was what I call "micro rigging" - in the sense that
they manipulated the numbers of people voting.
There were many ways in which they could do this - threats against the
population - "vote Zanu PF or else", multiple voting in remote areas
where there was insufficient supervision, the postal ballot and moving
people into key constituencies. We will have to look at all of these and
decide which we will take to court once the dust has settled.
But there can be no doubt this was a huge upset. Zanu seems to have been dislodged by a variety of factors. They gerrymandered the electoral
districts giving the rural vote (their traditional source of power) a 2
to 1 advantage over the urban voter. Then they gerrymandered the voter's roll and the distribution of polling stations. These measures were
overcome by two essential elements - a very high turn out of the voters
in urban areas (30 per cent of the voters roll but probably 65 per cent
of the actual number of registered voters that are still here) and a
very low turn out in rural districts (15 per cent or less). They also
underestimated the Makoni factor and he did much better than expected.
This was a referendum on Mugabe's leadership and even with all the
rigging and gerrymandering, he is now just so unpopular that he could
not be rescued. I doubt if he got 10 per cent of the vote, nationwide.
What we have witnessed in the last 24 hours are the last kicks of a
dying dynasty. I wonder what is going on right now behind those closed
doors!
Eddie Cross
31st March 2008
From Denese in Zimbabwe For those who are interested, this website is publishing results - but not sure how often they are updating it ............
http://www.zimelectionresults.com/ Zimbabwe headed for runoff amid fraud allegations
Cris Chinaka, Reuters Published: Tuesday, April 01, 2008
HARARE -- Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai will beat President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe's crucial election, but be forced into a runoff vote in three weeks, according to a ruling party projection.
Two ZANU-PF party sources said on Tuesday the projection showed Mr. Tsvangirai falling short of the 51% needed for outright victory. It was similar to projections by an independent monitoring group.
No official results have yet emerged on Saturday's presidential poll. The opposition charges that the delay veils attempts by Mr. Mugabe to hang on to power by rigging the vote.
Mr. Mugabe, in power for 28 years, faced his most formidable challenge in the election, with both Mr. Tsvangirai and third candidate Simba Makoni, a former finance minister, accusing him of reducing the population to misery by wrecking Zimbabwe's economy.
Official results on Tuesday showed ZANU-PF with a narrow lead of two seats in the parliamentary poll with 131 out of 210 constituencies declared. But a breakaway opposition party took another five seats.
A third government minister lost his seat and results showed the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) making some inroads into Mr. Mugabe's traditional rural strongholds.
Two senior government sources who asked not to be named said their projections showed Mr. Tsvangirai getting 48.3%, against Mr. Mugabe's 43%, with Mr. Makoni taking 8%.
"What this means is that we are looking at a re-run because he did not win with a margin of over 51% that would have given him the job straight away," one of the sources said.
A projection by the independent Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) had Mr. Tsvangirai taking 49.4% and Mr. Mugabe 41.8% with Mr. Makoni at 8.2%.
The opposition is expected to unite behind one candidate if there is a runoff, which would be held three weeks after last Saturday's election.
A senior Western diplomat told Reuters a re-run was likely.
"We can all speculate about what they (ZANU-PF) did or did not do. But when you look at some of the projections by other observers, such as ZESN, they are pointing to a re-run," he said.
Zimbabweans are suffering the world's highest inflation of more than 100,000%, food and fuel shortages, and an HIV/AIDS epidemic that has contributed to a steep decline in life expectancy.
The MDC says the unprecedented delay in issuing presidential results indicates Mr. Mugabe is trying to stave off defeat by fraud. Electoral authorities said they were still collating and verifying returns.
"It is now clear that there is something fishy. The whole thing is suspicious and totally unacceptable," MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said.
Seven European countries and the United States called on Zimbabwe's Electoral Commission to quickly release the results.
"This would end the current uncertainty and prevent the risk of rising tensions," the EU's Slovenian presidency said in a statement.
The MDC said unofficial tallies showed Mr. Tsvangirai had 60% of the presidential vote, twice the total for Mr. Mugabe.
"In our view, as we stated before, we cannot see the national trend changing. This means the people have spoken, they've spoken against the dictatorship," MDC Secretary-General Tendai Biti said.
Reuters © 2008
Eric