ZIMBABWE ELECTION UPDATE

by Kate Smail

SquareOne News

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party today lost patience with Zimbabwe’s delayed election results, and declared Morgan Tsvangirai the winner.

Basing their claims on polling station results already posted by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, the MDC assert they took 50.3 percent of the vote. There has been no comment from the ruling party Zanu-PF, or the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to verify the statement.

However, state owned newspaper The Herald has predicted votes will be drawn between the MDC and Zanu-PF, resulting in a presidential ‘run-off,’ to take place within the next three weeks.

Reports emerging from the country suggest that the delay in announcing the results is to allow for an appropriate withdrawal of the President, not to rig votes in favour of the ruling Zanu-PF party, as was originally feared.

Sources within Harare have suggested the results have not yet been published so the ‘old man,’ as 84 year old Mugabe is known, can procure immunity from prosecution upon handing over power.

According to BBC reports, South African diplomats are with Mugabe now, urging him to relinquish power in order to preserve his reputation within Africa, where he enjoys greater respect than here in the West.

In his 28 year reign, Mugabe has ruled the country with an iron fist. Once considered the bread basket of Southern Africa, Zimbabwe now has the lowest life expectancy of any country worldwide, with an estimated four million people facing starvation and an unemployment rate of 90 percent.

If Mugabe goes, he will leave behind a country brought to its knees by crippling inflation and a catalogue of human rights abuses. Since 2005, the UN estimates that around 2.4m people have been displaced by the controversial re-settlement policy called ‘operation clear out the trash,’ whereby slum areas are flattened and its occupants forced to flee to rural areas.

Political uprisings are met with brutal military force, and the media is largely state owned and operated.

The country’s largest selling independent newspaper, The Daily News had its license revoked in 2005 after continuing criticism of the Mugabe Regime. One of its British Directors, who has asked not to be named, told Square One:

“There will be a collective sigh of relief if Mugabe goes. His departure is now being driven by regional leaders, a huge step forward in itself.”

News of the MDC’s alleged win has not yet been broadcast in Zimbabwe, where state operated television is instead showing re-runs of old cartoons.