By AFP
Harare : Zimbabwe’s elections commission tried to calm growing disquiet Tuesday at the delay in announcing the results of presidential polls, amid warnings that the country was teetering on anarchy.
While a slow trickle of results from a simultaneous parliamentary contest gave the opposition a slight lead over President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party, there was still no word on the presidential election three days after polls closed.
Desperate for an end to the logjam, prominent civic organisations petitioned African governments to use their influence to force authorities to start releasing figures. But the election commission insisted more time was needed.
“We would like to urge the nation to remain patient as we go through this meticulous verification process,” chief elections officer Lovemore Sekeramayi said in a statement. “The commission would further to like to commend the electorate for showing political maturity and tolerance before, during and after the polls. We urge you to continue in that spirit.”
So far the commission has announced the results of 131 out of 210 parliamentary seats, with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) slightly ahead of Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF which has won 67. The situation is slightly complicated by a split in MDC ranks, with five of the lawmakers belonging to a rebel faction.
But the release of a further batch of parliamentary results did not manage to deflect growing frustration over the delay in an announcement on the main presidential contest which the MDC believes its leader Morgan Tsvangirai has won.
With the European Union and US having accused Mugabe of rigging his 2002 re-election, no Western observers were allowed to oversee Saturday’s ballot.
But Western governments have been closely watching from afar and the first suggestions that Mugabe should quit emanated from Europe.
“I hope he is on his way out, most Europeans think this way,” Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, whose country holds the revolving presidency of the European Union, told journalists in Brussels. “If Mr Mugabe continues, it will be a coup d’etat,” Rupel said, adding: “The results indicate that Mr. Mugabe lost the elections.”
The US government, which has described Zimbabwe as an outpost of tyranny, urged the count to be speeded up.
“Delays in that vote counting and delays in the release of the results are troubling, certainly given all the problems that we noted prior to the election,” said State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged “utmost transparency” in the vote-counting so that Zimbabweans could have full confidence in the results.
Monitoring of the vote was largely left in the hands of African organisations such as a mission from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which gave it a generally clean bill of health.
In a petition to SADC and the African Union, a coalition of 18 rights organisations, including the pro-opposition Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition and Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, urged them to push for speedier results and expressed fears that the delay was part of efforts to fix the outcome.
“We … have found it necessary to send this urgent petition to your excellencies in order to save our country from potentially sinking into complete anarchy if election results are manipulated,” the petition said. “We as civil society are concerned by the failure to announce the results. This creates a founded suspicion in the minds of Zimbabweans that the authorities are trying to manipulate the results.”
Based on its own calculations, the MDC is confident it has won both the presidential and parliamentary contest.
However an independent network which deployed some 8,000 local election observers has projected Tsvangirai will fall just short of the votes needed for outright victory, forcing a run-off with Mugabe later this month.
Tsvangirai has not been seen since voting day when he accused authorities of widespread vote-rigging.
His spokesman George Sibotshiwe said there was nothing sinister in his absence, adding he was “happy and well.”
Sibotshiwe also denied reports that MDC and ZANU-PF officials were already in talks to ensure a smooth handover of power.
“That’s all lies. We are just waiting for the final results,” he told AFP.
While riot police had been seen on the streets of Harare on Monday, there was no overt sign of stepped-up security on Tuesday and there has been no significant violence so far.
The elections come as Zimbabwe grapples with an inflation rate of over 100,000 percent and widespread shortages of even basic foodstuffs such as bread and cooking oil.