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2008 harmonised elections - Index of articles
Tsvangirai
threatens to withdraw over vote count fear
Monsters and Critics
March 20, 2008
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/africa/
Harare - Opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai threatened Thursday to withdraw from elections
next week, if Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government fails
to follow electoral law on the vote count.
The head of the larger
faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change claimed
at a press conference that electoral authorities were planning to
carry out the count in a 'national command centre,' instead of in
each of the country's 11,000 polling stations.
'We now hear the counting
of house of assembly and senate (the lower and upper chambers in
the legislature respectively) votes will be in constituency centres,
and the presidential vote will be counted in a national command
centre,' he told a press conference, without elaborating on the
source of the information.
'If that happens I will
not participate in such a process.' According to election watchdog
groups, the 'national command centre' was the final stage in the
result process, staffed largely by military officers, and where
results in previous elections had been changed to suit Mugabe. The
command centre does not appear in electoral law.
Tsvangirai also said
that the election would not be free and fair, but added, 'we accept
all that,' and said the MDC had been hoping to 'minimise' abuses
and irregularities.
Presidential, house of
assembly, senate and local council elections are due to be held
on a single day on March 29.
Zimbabwean electoral
law prescribes counting of ballot papers for candidates in each
of the elections to be carried out in the polling stations where
the ballots were cast. The totals for all candidates then have to
be written out and stuck on the door of the polling station as public
notices.
This law, and
several others, are part of reforms that were agreed in negotiations,
sponsored by the Southern African Development Community, the 14-nation
regional alliance, and held under the chairmanship of South African
president Thabo Mbeki. Opposition parties and human rights organisations
say Mugabe has abrogated all the significant reforms.
Tsvangirai also highlighted
Mugabe's use of extraordinary 'presidential powers' published Wednesday
that abolished a new electoral reform that excluded police from
being present in polling stations.
'We know that they will
be CIO (Central Intelligence Organisation, Mugabe's secret police),
military and militia (ruling party youth militia) in police uniform,'
he said.
He described the voters'
roll as 'a shambles,' and said investigations had revealed irregularities
where football fields and empty housing lots were used as addresses
for fictional voters.
He also cited an analysis
by a local research body of the number of voters in 28 constituencies
which showed that the total number of voters claimed in the constituencies
by the state-appointed Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, which is meant
to run the elections, was 90,000 more than were on the actual roll.
'With 210 (parliamentary)
constituencies, you can imagine the total number of people that
don't exist.
He also produced a letter
which he claimed was a copy of an order from ZEC to the state mint
to produce 600,000 postal votes. Mugabe has banned ordinary Zimbabweans
residing outside the country from casting postal votes, and given
the right only to diplomats and members of the uniformed services.
'The total number
of army, police and diplomats (abroad) do not exceed 20,000,' he
said.
Tsvangirai also said
that the mint had been ordered to print 9 million ordinary ballot
papers, when there were 5.9 million people on the voters roll.
'What for?' he asked
rhetorically.
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