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Mugabe's party expects to fight runoff
Cris Chinaka, Reuters
April 04, 2008

http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN422289.html

The leadership of Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party met on Friday to decide whether President Robert Mugabe should contest a runoff vote against opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Mugabe convened his politburo after the party lost control of parliament for the first time in 28 years, in the biggest setback of his rule.

A ZANU-PF official told Reuters the meeting was expected to agree he would fight to retain power in a runoff.

There is increasing impatience in Zimbabwe at a six-day wait for the results of the presidential election, which Tsvangirai's MDC said he won outright but which ZANU-PF and independent projections indicate will require a second round.

The MDC said it would ask the High Court to order the immediate release of the results. It believes the delay masks attempts by Mugabe to engineer a way out of the crisis.

Mugabe faces deep discontent as Zimbabwe suffers the world's highest inflation rate of more than 100,000 percent, a virtually worthless currency and severe food and fuel shortages.

Referring to the politburo meeting, a senior party member told Reuters: "I have no doubt the resolution will be in favour of a run-off, I have no doubt about that.

"We cannot just hand it to Morgan (Tsvangirai) on a silver platter. We will fight for it and we will win."

The opposition says its tallies show Tsvangirai won an absolute majority and should be declared president immediately.

Amid rumours that security forces planned to crackdown on the opposition, Tsvangirai spokesman George Sibotshiwe denied the MDC leader had gone into hiding.

"He had a meeting with diplomats today and he is in his offices. He has no reason to hide."

Senate results, which must precede the presidential outcome, only began trickling out on Thursday night.

Buy time
A runoff should be held on April 19, three weeks after the elections, but civil society groups said Mugabe plans to extend that to 90 days to buy time to regroup.

A statement by civil society organisations in Harare said they had "reliable knowledge" that Mugabe intended to extend the interval before a runoff "using disputed and autocratic presidential powers".

The statement read by human rights lawyer Lovemore Madhuku expressed "gravest concern at the unacceptable delay in the release of poll results".

MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told Reuters: "I am not aware of such a plan but no matter how much they may want to buy time or beat up people or employ other dirty tricks, the people of Zimbabwe have already made a choice by voting for a candidate (Tsvangirai) that will take the country forward."

Analysts believe Mugabe would try to ensure victory in the second vote by using militias and powerful security forces to cow MDC supporters in the interval before the runoff.

Riot police patrols were out in central Harare on Friday and two foreign journalists were arrested on Thursday night for reporting the elections without accreditation.

The White House said it was "troubled" by the arrests and called for a swift resolution of the post-election situation.

"We're troubled by the reports we're hearing on the ground," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters at the NATO summit in Bucharest. "Journalists and NGOs should be permitted to go about their business."

The European Union called on electoral authorities to release the results as soon as possible and protested over the arrest of journalists.

Madhuku, of rights group National Constitutional Assembly, denied reports that the law requires the electoral commission to issue presidential election results by today.

"There is no law that says you have to announce the presidential result, or any results, within a certain period. There is no limit," he said.

"The bottom line is that ZANU-PF does not want to, and will not hand power to the MDC".

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