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Zimbabwe announces election run-off
Stephanie Nolen, Globe and Mail
May 02, 2008

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080502.wnolenzimbabwe0502/BNStory/International/home

Zimbabwe's Electoral Commission confirmed yesterday that its results show the opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai won March 29 presidential elections, but failed to clear the 50 per cent plus one mark needed to take the contest outright.

The government-controlled commission said official results showed Mr. Tsvangirai took 47.9 per cent of the vote and Mr. Mugabe 43.2 per cent.

However, these results are widely doubted, in part because of the lengthy delay in their release and because, more than three weeks ago, soldiers removed the ballot boxes from the commission operations center and no independent or opposition observers have had access to them since.

Mr. Tsvangirai's party, the Movement for Democratic Change, which insists he won the vote outright, once again said he would not contest the run-off. "These results lack credibility and they are a creation of the [electoral commission] and its handlers in the ZANU-PF government," said MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa.

"There is no way any sane person can possibly participate in a runoff when it's so clear that they have won in the first round. ZANU-PF has stolen the election again." He said the MDC plans to move ahead with forming a new government.

However if the current government presses ahead with its run-off and Mr. Tsvangirai does not compete, Mr. Mugabe can simply declare himself the winner and extend his 28 year of rule.

"I don't think that they are serious about not participating because they have been saying different things since the election day," Minister of National Security Didymus Mutasa said about the MDC.

"But if they are serious this time around they will be shocked, because we will proceed without them. The message is very simple: if they don't participate, they lose the runoff."

Eldred Masunungure, a professor of political science at the University of Zimbabwe, said Mr. Tsvangirai would have to hold his nose and compete in the second-round vote. "I don't believe that Tsvangirai will refuse to participate in a runoff — he is given to prevaricating and flip-flopping but I believe that he will eventually participate no matter what he says," he said.

But he warned that the coming weeks of campaigning will be even more ugly than the month since the vote, in which at least a dozen MDC supporters have been killed, and hundreds more beaten or burned out of their homes.

"In the run-off, the state's machines of repression [will scale up] and the people will be beaten and killed . . . Zanu-PF has already started intimidating ahead of this runoff. They started weeks ago. "

Mr. Mutasa said MDC members were attacked only when they seriously provoked ZANU-PF backers. "They are being beaten because they are provoking people," he said. "People don't cease to be human because of an election. They still get irritated by an act of provocation and beat they will, if they are angry."

In Harare, release of the long-delayed results was nearly anticlimactic; they were seen simply as grim proof that ZANU-PF will not leave power without a bitter fight.

Street vendor Denford Nyakudya, 25, said the results were no surprise and clearly faked. "What were they doing with the numbers for 30 days? The whole thing is sinister."

Others predicted that Mr. Mugabe is simply extending the painful process of losing power. "The results don't change much because we already knew that Mugabe will cheat again," said Tabhani Mabhena, a 45-year-old guard. "What is a fact is that he won't continue to cheat forever. The reason why he did not win this election was because he did not rig enough. He is running out of means and tricks to rig the elections . . . In the runoff the margins will be bigger. He will be shocked."

With a report from a Globe and Mail contributor in Harare.

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