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Zimbabwe announces poll results
The long-awaited results of Zimbabwe’s presidential poll have been announced, with the opposition’s Morgan Tsvangirai winning 47.9%, forcing a second round. Election officials say Mr Tsvangirai beat President Robert Mugabe’s 43.2%, but neither candidate passed the 50% threshold for an outright win. A spokesman for Mr Mugabe said the result brought no surprises. But Mr Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said the result was “scandalous daylight robbery”. The MDC accuses ruling party supporters of rigging the vote and of launching a campaign of intimidation and violence following the elections on 29 March. It says the delay in announcing the results was to give pro-government militants time to organise and carry out their attacks.
Zanu-PF party says the scale of the violence has been exaggerated and accuses the MDC of staging political attacks. Chief Elections Officer Lovemore Sekeramayi said former Finance Minister Simba Makoni came third with 8.3%. He said a date for the second round between Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai would be announced later. It should be held within three weeks. Correspondents say Mr Makoni is widely expected to back Mr Tsvangirai in any run-off. A spokesman for Mr Mugabe’s Zanu-PF, Bright Matonga, told the BBC that both main parties had been aware that no-one had won outright. “That has now been confirmed, there’s no outright winner, pointing to a run-off,” he said. “The laws of Zimbabwe and the constitution clearly states that for one to be an outright winner, they have to achieve 50 [per cent] plus one. If no-one achieves that, then there’s going to be a run-off so we are following our constitution, not people’s wishes.” Observers needed Mr Tsvangirai has in the past said he would not take part in a run-off unless international observers were involved and says he won outright with 50.3% of the vote. “This whole thing is a scandal, scandalous daylight robbery and everyone knows that,” said MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa.
“We won this election outright, and yet what we are being given here as the outcome are some fudged figures meant to save Mugabe and Zanu-PF.” The UK and United States have raised doubts about the results and the possibility of a second round being fair. The UK Foreign Office said the results “lack credibility”, adding that a second round would not be fair unless the violence ended and more international monitors were present. “President Mugabe’s campaign of violence and intimidation coupled with the arrest of 99 electoral commission officials in the last month show exactly how Zanu-PF will approach any second round,” a spokeswoman said. US state department spokesman Tom Casey said it was hard to see how a run-off could be fair “when the government has done everything it could to both delay and obscure the results”. Election officials have been accused of trying to rig the elections in favour of the MDC. MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti told the BBC that the process to verify the electoral result was “aborted prematurely” as the MDC was trying to “expose fraud”. Mr Biti said the party would go to court to try to declare Mr Tsvangirai the next president of Zimbabwe on the basis that he won more votes than Robert Mugabe. Fleeing violence The MDC and human rights groups say there has been a massive campaign of violence against opposition activists in rural areas in anticipation of a run-off vote. The MDC says hundreds of people have fled their homes and 20 have been killed. On Thursday, the defence minister in neighbouring Botswana said Zimbabweans were fleeing the violence, with almost 100 people arriving in the past three days. He said in the past, Zimbabweans had been economic migrants but now they were seeking political asylum. There have been similar reports from Mozambique. |
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Source: BBC
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