Posted on 03/11/2002 12:05:42 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabweans voted on Monday in the capital Harare after a High Court judge ordered a third day of voting in the country's most bitterly-contested presidential election of President Robert Mugabe's 22 years in power.
Witnesses saw voting resume shortly after 7 a.m. at polling stations in Harare's Warren Park, Highlands and Mabvuku townships.
State radio said the voting would be extended only in Harare and nearby Chitungwiza settlement, the two places cited by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in its plea to the High Court for an extension.
It was not clear whether counting would begin on Monday or wait until after the extended vote in the Harare area.
Opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai, seeking to end Mugabe's monopoly on power since independence in 1980, has accused Mugabe of wholesale cheating.
The government, citing high costs, logistical and administrative problems, defied a court order to keep all polling stations across the country open on Monday to ensure Zimbabwe's presidential election was fair.
With long queues of voters still lining up to cast their ballots on Sunday evening after two days and President Mugabe's challenger saying electoral officials were on a go-slow to thwart him, a High Court judge ordered a third day of voting.
Supporters of Tsvangirai, Mugabe's toughest challenger since independence in 1980, also complained that police were using the court ruling to stop late-night voting on Sunday and beat away thousands still waiting to cast ballots.
Quoting Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, state radio said the polling stations would reopen only in the two areas that had the longest queues late on Sunday.
'IMPOSSIBLE TO COMPLY'
"Comrade Chinamasa has said it is impossible to comply with the order to extend the vote nationwide because in some areas, polling has already closed and ballot boxes have already been returned," the radio said.
Political analysts believe Tsvangirai commands a majority but say he is unlikely to win after two years of intimidation, legal manipulation and dirty tricks by the ruling ZANU-PF party.
Mugabe, 78, has taken the former Rhodesia from civil war and white minority rule to prosperity in the 1980s and now to penury that threatens the stability of the southern African region.
Britain, the former colonial power, and the United States have warned him a rigged election could destabilize the country.
Neighboring South Africa, widely criticized for failing to condemn Mugabe's handling of his political and economic crises, fears a meltdown would cause a flood of refugees.
Witnesses said on Sunday that the opposition's court victory might have backfired within hours.
Riot police fanned out across Harare within an hour of the decision, shutting down polling stations that the authorities had promised to keep open all night to process queues of voters. The MDC has done very well in Harare in previous elections.
"The authorities are closing all the polling stations in Harare because of the court decision," Norwegian observer Kare Vollan told Reuters at 11 p.m. at Warren Park, a western Harare township where there was a huge voter turnout.
He said at least 1,000 voters had been turned away, adding: "We have reports of the same closures all over the town."
Witnesses said riot police shut down another polling station about an hour after the ruling, scattering around 2,500 people who had waited most of the day.
20-HOUR WAITS
The MDC had sought the court order on Sunday after thousands of voters had waited up to 20 hours to vote on Saturday.
Police clashed at least three times with angry voters who suspected a deliberate bid to undermine the opposition.
The MDC said in a statement late on Sunday that its court victory was being undone by the government's decision to close polling stations it had promised to keep open all night.
"This evening, the government of Zimbabwe took a deliberate decision to deny hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans the right to vote by closing polling stations...despite its earlier undertaking that polling stations would remain open for as long as there were people still queuing to vote.
"At the time the high court was making the order, police were busy closing polling stations in Harare and Chitungwiza, beating up people queuing to vote and ordering them to go home because 'polling was over'," the MDC statement said.
Election Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede said on state television that a national extension was unnecessary.
Mudede said, however, that by midday on Sunday barely a quarter of the voters registered in Harare had cast their ballots. The 205,000 votes gathered was about half the number that voted in parliamentary elections in June 2000.
The independent Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum reported attacks on opposition supporters on Sunday and on MDC election agents and monitors officially mandated to oversee rural voting.
The forum said at least 58 people, including 11 white farmers, two Americans and two Britons had been arrested for a variety of alleged offences.
The High Court ordered the government to extend voting countrywide for a third day after thousands of people remained on lines in Harare when the polls were supposed to close. Many voters returned to vote Monday after being chased away from polling stations by police Sunday night.
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said on state television Monday morning that the government would comply with the court order under duress and would only extend voting around the capital of Harare because many polling stations in the rest of the country had already been dismantled.
However, by 8:30 a.m. Monday, 11/2 hours after polls were to reopen, polling observers in Harare said they remained closed.
"People have come as early as 4 a.m.. They wanted to vote, but nothing is happening in the ground," said Derek Madharani, an opposition poll observer. "I don't know what we can do now. We have exhausted all the channels to plea with this government to be fair to the people, to give them a chance to vote, but our pleas are falling on deaf ears." [End Excerpt]
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