Zimbabwe’s opposition party today declared its leader Morgan Tsvangirai the rightful winner of the presidential election as official results showed Robert Mugabe’s party had lost control of the parliament.
The Movement for Democratic Change said that Mr Tsvangirai had won more than the 50 per cent of the vote needed to win the presidency outright.
It claimed that Mr Tsvangirai had secured 50.3 per cent of the vote to President Robert Mugabe’s 43.8 per cent, based on its own tally of the results posted up outside individual polling stations after the ballot.
“President Richard Morgan Tsvangirai has won this election, in respect of attaining the majority required under the electoral act. He has won it without a run off. We wait anxiously to see whether ZEC will confirm that,” said Tendai Biti, the MDC secretary general.
“We appeal to certain sectors to simply concede and avoid embarrassment.”
‘He added that ”somebody (Mugabe) should concede that a run off really doesn’t need to be held,” contrary to views “held in certain elderly quarters.”
But, in a significant concession, he added that, ”under protest”, Mr Tsvangirai would consent to take part in a second round presidential run-off vote if necessary – an indication that the MDC is keen to avoid a repeat of the violence after the recent, disputed Kenyan elections.
This afternoon the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission announced most of the remaining results of the parliamentary elections, confirming that an earthquake had taken place in Zimbabwean politics.
The Commission said that Zanu (PF) had lost its previously unassailable majority in the Zimbabwean House of Assembly, taking 93 of the 206 contested seats to the MDC’s total of 105. A further seat has gone to an independent, and the handful of seats left to be announced are not enough for Zanu (PF) to keep control of the 210-seat assembly.
No official word has yet emerged from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission on the presidential ballot.
The long-awaited results were issued hours after the first chink in the five-day news blackout since Saturday’s elections, when the Zimbabwean Government admitted for the first time the scale of its losses.
A report this morning in the state-controlled Herald newspaper , the mouthpiece of the Government, acknowledged that Mr Mugabe had not won the presidential vote, but claimed that no candidate had won an overall majority and that there was likely to be a new round of presidential voting.
It predicted that Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai would take part in a run-off vote within 21 days. The third candidate, the former Zanu (PF) Finance Minister Simba Makoni, will be knocked out.
The report is the first indication from the Government that Mr Mugabe – the former hero resistance fighter who has led Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980 – had not won the presidential ballot.
The Herald also said that the Government had decided on an immediate, ten-fold increase in tax relief on salaries to cushion the effect of runaway inflation – a move widely seen as an attempt to curry favour with voters before a run-off.
The prospect of a long wait for a new vote has prompted fears of violence between MDC supporters and security forces and militia loyal to Mr Mugabe.
Bright Matonga, the Zimbabwean Deputy Information Minister, condemned the MDC for attempting to jump the gun by declaring victory, and accused Britain and the United States of acting as puppet-masters.
”Until the electoral commission makes an announcement the MDC can run around and say what they like, but that’s wishful thinking,” Mr Matonga told Sky News in an angry and strident interview.
”They think they are putting pressure on people around President Mugabe, but Zanu (PF) is a very solid party, and President Mugabe isn’t going anywhere.
”No-one is panicking around President Mugabe. The army is very solidly behind our president, the police force as well.”
He defended the long delays in announcing the results, claiming that the commission was working ”around the clock” to process the parliamentary results, and then would issue the results of the senatorial vote, before finally turning its attention to the presidency.
”We are still within the six days prescribed by the electoral commission (for the results to be announced),” said Mr Matonga, a comment taken as a hint that the official results of the presidential ballot will probably be announced before the end of Friday.
In the last 24 hours there have been clear suggestions that Government negotiators were locked in secret talks with the MDC, to negotiate a dignified exit for the 84-year-old head of state.
Both the Government and the MDC have vehemently denied this, but Mr Tsvangirai yesterday made clear to reporters that he was preparing for power. “The vote we passed on Saturday was a vote for change, for a new beginning,” he said. “In those minutes inside the polling booths each one rewrote the history of Zimbabwe.”
Some members of the Zanu-PF hierarchy, including Constantine Chiwenga, the head of the army, reportedly want Mr Mugabe to stay on in the hopes that he can bribe and threaten his way to victory in a second round presidential run-off.
David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary, told Parliament today that the delay in publishing Zimbabwe’s election results was a “calculated tactic” fuelling suspicion authorities did not want to accept them.
“Last Saturday the people of Zimbabwe made their choice. Outside the 9,400 polling stations the tallies have been posted. The Zimbabwean electoral commission knows what those results are, and has a duty to announce them,” said Mr Miliband.
He praised the “statesmanlike” comments of Mr Tsvangirai but said he would not hand Zanu PF a propaganda coup by endorsing one candidate over another. In spite of President Mugabe’s claims, he said, the crisis in Zimbabwe was not about personalities.
“It has always been about the policies which Robert Mugabe and his government have chosen to follow and the terrible destruction that has been wreaked on the Zimbabwe people,” he said.
