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This article participates on the following special index pages:
2008 harmonised elections - Index of articles
Legal
fight over Zimbabwe recount
BBC
News
April 13, 2008
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7345097.stm
Zimbabwe's opposition
says it will mount a legal challenge to the election commission's
order for a ballot recount in last month's contested polls.
Votes from 23 constituencies
will be recounted on Saturday, local media say.
A change in the parliamentary
result by nine seats could see President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF
party regain its lost majority in the assembly.
A key minister said the
army would not be used against the people, despite opposition claims
of intimidation.
Two weeks after the elections,
official results of the presidential race have not been released.
The opposition Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) says it won the presidency and has accused
President Mugabe, who has been in power since 1980, of a de facto
coup and campaign of violence ahead of a possible run-off vote.
But Information
Minister Sikhoanyiso Ndlovu told the Sunday Mail that "the
army will not fight against Zimbabweans because it is there to protect
them". He
said there was "no military junta" in the country, soldiers
were in their barracks and were not fully needed in "such a
peaceful environment".
'Vote
rigging'
MDC
lawyer Selby Hwacha said the party planned to fight in court the
recount announced by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).
"We will see how
they play it out, but we will challenge it," he said.
Accepting a recount would
be "accepting rigged results," MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa
told Reuters news agency.
"They had custody
of the ballot boxes for two weeks and they must have stuffed them
with their votes."
ZEC chairman George Chiweshe
said the results from 22 districts had been disputed by the ruling
Zanu-PF party, while the MDC contested the count in one constituency.
The recount
will be of all presidential, parliamentary, senate and council votes
cast in the 29 March elections in the affected constituencies.
Regional
pressure
The
developments followed a call from southern African leaders for the
still unpublished presidential poll results to be speedily announced.
After a summit in Zambia
aimed at breaking the deadlock in Zimbabwe, Southern African Development
Community (SADC) leaders also urged all parties to accept the election
results and asked South African President Thabo Mbeki to continue
his role as SADC's "facilitator on Zimbabwe".
Mr Mugabe declined an
invitation to the summit of the 14-nation body, sending a delegation
of ministers instead.
MDC Secretary-General
Tendai Biti described the summit outcome as a "major improvement".
But he called on Mr Mbeki to show "more vigour, more openness
and a complete abandonment of the policy of quiet diplomacy".
According to results
released so far, Zanu-PF has lost its majority in the House of Assembly
for the first time since independence in 1980, winning 97 seats
against the MDC's 99 in the 210-seat chamber. A smaller MDC faction
has 10 seats.
In the Senate, or upper
house, Zanu-PF and the combined opposition have 30 seats each.
The opposition says its
leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, won more than the 50% of the vote necessary
to avoid a second round in the presidential contest, citing returns
posted outside polling stations.
Under President Mugabe,
a drawn-out economic collapse in Zimbabwe has seen hyperinflation,
massive unemployment and the departure of hundreds of thousands
of people.
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