Posted on 03/12/2002 10:41:40 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Independent observers and rights groups blasted the Zimbabwean government Tuesday, saying presidential elections were deeply flawed by violence and intimidation, confused voter lists and the arrest of some 1,400 observers and polling agents during the balloting.
The criticism came as officials began counting the ballots Tuesday from three days of voting in the country's most competitive election ever. It pitted President Robert Mugabe - the only leader the country has known in 22-years of independence - against Morgan Tsvangirai, a former labor organizer.
More than 1,400 people, most of them independent election observers and representatives from the opposition to watch over the polls, have been arrested since voting began Saturday, Amnesty International said.
The London-based rights group said reports pointed to a "pattern of mass arbitrary detention of hundreds of polling agents belonging to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change," Tsvangerai's party.
"We are deeply concerned for the safety of those arrested in the light of the well-established pattern of `disappearances,' cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by Zimbabwean security forces," the group said in a statement.
"The election well has been poisoned to such an extent that there is unlikely to be any other result," than a Mugabe victory, said Brian Raftopolous, head of a collection of church and civic groups known as the Crisis in Zimbabwe Committee.
Committee members said they were discussing whether or not to organize a nationwide general strike to channel voter anger into a peaceful protest. "We are concerned about a spontaneous eruption of anger, particularly in urban areas," Raftopolous said.
The opposition party complained Tuesday that its observers were locked out of ballot counting centers in the capital, Harare, and the country's second largest city, Bulawayo. The opposition also said ruling party militants were trying to intimidate opposition observers at two other counting centers.
Militants from Mugabe's party were seen outside at least one Harare counting station. First results were expected Wednesday.
The Zimbabwe Election Support Network, a coalition of non-governmental organizations, produced a laundry list of problems related to the election, including flawed voter rolls, intimidation and attacks on voters by police and ruling party militants and the deployment of voting stations in a way that clearly favored Mugabe.
"There is no way these elections can be described as substantially free and fair," Reginald Matchaba-Hove, chairman of the network, said. "Tens of thousands of Zimbabweans have been deliberately and systematically disenfranchised."
The Norwegian Observer Mission found flaws in every step of the electoral process, said Kare Vollan, head of the 25-member mission. "The presidential elections failed to meet key, broadly accepted criteria for elections," Vollan said.
The mission said in a statement that state election officials lacked "convincing independence and integrity" and that security forces used new laws to obstruct the opposition's political activities and observations of the election.
The secretary-general of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, Welshman Ncube, appeared in a Harare court Tuesday in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate Mugabe. Ncube and Tsvangirai have been charged with treason for the plot - charges they deny and say were concocted by the government to discredit them.
Ncube, who was ordered to pay $9,000 bail, told The Associated Press his arrest was an act of desperation by the beleaguered ruling party.
"We remain firmly confident (of victory) otherwise they would not be in such a state of panic themselves," he said.
On Monday night, would-be voters, some chanting the opposition's slogan for change, were beaten back by riot police at polling stations throughout the capital in what observers said appeared to be a calculated plan to disenfranchise opposition voters. Police used tear gas at four Harare area polling stations, the network said.
"Since independence I've never seen such a thing and I wonder why they've done so," said F. Ncube, a 50 year-old factory worker not related to the opposition leader.
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo denied there was foul play, saying the ruling party did not have the capacity to rig the election even if it wanted to.
"It's absolutely a figment of someone's (imagination who) is staring defeat in the face to say there was disenfranchisement of one voter in Harare," he told state television Tuesday.
Even before the Harare polls closed, authorities announced turnout figures that showed massive voting in Mugabe strongholds, with far fewer voters casting ballots in opposition areas.
Opposition officials said the reported turnouts in pro-Mugabe areas did not match the reports from their polling agents.
In Bulawayo, observers said they had serious concerns about voter intimidation, unfair election laws and the omission of hundreds of names from voters' rolls.
Mugabe led the nation to independence in 1980 and faced little dissent until recent years, when the nation's economy collapsed and political violence - blamed mostly on the ruling party - became rampant.
Four U.S. diplomats were also detained for several hours by Zimbabwean police Monday in the turbulent town of Chinhoyi, 75 miles north of Harare, said Bruce Warton, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy. He said two were accredited as election observers and Zimbabwean authorities had not explained why they were detained.
Twenty-two years after Zimbabwe won its independence from British colonial rule, 4,000 white farmers continue to own and till about 30 percent of the nation's farmland. The highly productive white farms have been a backbone of the country's economy; they also are bitter irritation for Mugabe, who has largely failed in his desire to redistribute most of the land to independence war veterans and landless poor.
Until two years ago, the government had managed to acquire and parcel out just 15 percent of Zimbabwe's 28 million acres of farmland, according to government figures. Mugabe officials blame the slow pace on unwilling white sellers, bureaucratic red tape and a pullout by Britain, which quit providing cash for land acquisition in 1997 after accusing Mugabe of handing 40 percent of the land to cronies rather than peasants. [End Excerpt]
Assessment of the presidential campaign and election by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network
Well, of course he is. There's no secret -- you can't just hide 1400 arrests in the polling place, and Mugabe doesn't seem to care that his theft is open an obvious.
What it says is that Mugabe figures it won't matter if he steals the election or not, as he has an apparent monopoly on the use of force. His "veterans" are apparently loyal (so long as he can keep paying them off).
And he undoubtedly figures that the white world won't do anything to punish a black dictator. Certainly his neighbors don't much care.
Short of assassination, I think Mugabe has done a pretty good job of assessing his true position.
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