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Post-election violence 2008 - Index of articles & images
Zimbabwe
beating deaths tied to ruling party gangs
Monsters and Critics
May 15, 2008
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/africa/news/article_1405665.php
Zimbabwe's opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on Thursday called for an urgent
summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to hash
out conditions for a run-off presidential election.
Accusing the 14-nation
southern African grouping of failing to provide leadership in Zimbabwe's
post-election 'madness' MDC Secretary-General Tendai Biti said a
summit would allow SADC to show that African institutions can solve
African problems.
Biti was speaking in
Johannesburg a day after the state-controlled Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission, by way of a government gazette, announced a more than
two-month extension of the period within which an election run-off
must be held.
The run-off was called
for after no candidate took more than 50 per cent of the vote in
the first round of voting for president on March 29. MDC leader
Morgan Tsvangirai, 56, took 47.9 per cent to 84-year-old President
Robert Mugabe's 43.2 per cent.
Since the election youth
militia and soldiers loyal to Mugabe have gone on the rampage in
rural areas, attacking scores of opposition supporters for 'voting
wrongly.' Isolated incidents of MDC violence have also been reported.
The MDC said Thursday
40 of its members had been killed in the violence, including MDC
youth activist Better Chokururama, whom the party said was abducted
on the road north-east of Harare and whose body was discovered bearing
a gunshot and knife wounds.
Scores of MDC supporters,
trade unionists and journalists have been arrested in a crackdown
on dissent since the polls, nut usually released after a few days.
Raymond Majongwe,
secretary-general of the Progressive
Teachers' Union of Zimbabwe, was detained Thursday. His organization
had published a list of post-election attacks on its members.
The MDC accuses Mugabe,
who is trying to clinch a sixth term in office, of brutalizing its
supporters to try to boost his chances of re-election.
Under Zimbabwe's election
laws a run-off should be held within three weeks of the announcement
of the first-round results on May 2, that is to say by May 23.
ZEC on Wednesday extended
that period to 90 days (July 31).
Biti blasted the postponement
as 'unconstitutional and illegitimate.'
'Extending the run-off
period means further extending Mugabe's illegitimacy for a further
four months. In short, ZEC's decision cements the coup against the
constitution,' he said.
Earlier, SADC executive
secretary Tomasz Salomao expressed confidence in the ability of
ZEC to organize the run-off.
'If there were free and
fair elections on March 29, there's a good chance that the run-off
will also be free and fair,' Salomao said in an interview in Mozambique's
capital, Maputo.
The MDC has accused ZEC
of being biased in favour of Mugabe over its month-plus delay in
announcing the results of the first round.
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