By AFP,
Harare : Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai remained holed up in the Dutch embassy in Harare Tuesday after pulling out of a run-off election he said should be declared “null and void” due to violence, a stance backed by the UN Security Council.
The Security Council on Monday condemned the violence and intimidation against the opposition in Zimbabwe and urged that the presidential runoff vote not be held Friday as planned.
After hours of haggling, the 15-member council unanimously adopted a watered-down, non-binding statement that “condemns the campaign of violence against the political opposition ahead of the second round” of voting scheduled for Friday.
The British-drafted text also made it clear that the violence and restrictions placed on the opposition “have made it impossible for a free and fair election to take place on 27 June.” As international pressure mounted on President Robert Mugabe, the Dutch foreign ministry said Monday that Tsvangirai had spent the night in its mission in Zimbabwe’s capital.
Meanwhile, police, some of them in riot gear, raided the headquarters of the opposition party MDC on Monday afternoon.
Speaking to CNN television on Monday, Tsvangirai said the international community should declare the run-off elections “null and void” and organize a new vote.
“We have called upon (outside governments) — in this unprecedented situation — to intervene to ensure that the elections are declared null and void if they can do that, and special elections are then organized in a free and fair atmosphere,” he said.
UNÂ chief Ban Ki-moon on Monday urged Zimbabwean authorities to put off the vote in view of Tsvangirai’s withdrawal from the competition.
“I would strongly discourage authorities from going ahead with the run-off (vote) Friday,” Ban told reporters.
“It would only deepen the divisions within the country and produce results that cannot be credible.” But Zimbabwe’s UN Ambassador Boniface Chidyausiku, who attended the council meeting, said afterward that as far as his government was concerned, “the election (on Friday) goes ahead.”
He said that he was taking note of the council’s statement but pointedly added that the future of Zimbabwe will be determined by “the people of Zimbabwe and nobody else.”
Tsvangirai announced his withdrawal on Sunday, saying increasing pre-poll violence had made a free and fair vote impossible.
The opposition says more than 80 of its supporters have been killed in a campaign of intimidation.
Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen’s spokesman told AFP Monday that the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader was sheltering in the Dutch embassy in Harare.
“He is currently reflecting on what the next step should be,” the spokesman Bart Rijs added.
Zimbabwe’s police chief accused Tsvangirai of seeking refuge at the embassy in a “move intended to provoke international anger.” “We at the same time ask the Dutch embassy, if indeed he is there, to tell him to go home and enjoy your sleep and nothing will happen to him,” Augustine Chihuri said.
Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party has insisted that the run-off will go ahead.
“We are proceeding with our campaign to romp to victory on Friday,” Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa was quoted as saying by the government-run newspaper, The Herald.
President Mugabe remained defiant, accusing Britain, the United States and their allies of lying to the world to justify intervention in Zimbabwe, state media reported Tuesday.
“Britain and her allies are telling a lot of lies about Zimbabwe, saying a lot of people are dying. These are all lies because they want to build a situation to justify their intervention in Zimbabwe,” the state-run Herald newspaper reported Mugabe as saying.
Meanwhile, MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said police had rounded up more than 60 people, many of them “victims of political violence” in a raid on the MDC headquarters which he branded an “act of desperation and frustration” by Mugabe’s regime.
A police spokesman denied any arrests and said 39 people had been taken away for health reasons.
The MDC also said one of its newly elected lawmakers, Thamsanga Mahlangu, was “battling for his life” in intensive care after being beaten up by Mugabe’s supporters ahead of an aborted campaign rally.
Tsvangirai beat Mugabe in a first round presidential vote in March, but official results did not give him the absolute majority required to avoid a run-off.
The MDC leader insists he won the first round outright.
Efforts to resolve the crisis pressed ahead, however, with a high-level South African mediation team in Zimbabwe, a spokesman for President Thabo Mbeki said.
“They are engaging with all parties in Zimbabwe,” Mukoni Ratshitanga said.
Tsvangirai’s withdrawal would hand victory by default to Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980.
Mugabe is accused by critics of leading the once model economy to ruin and trampling on human rights.
The country has the world’s highest inflation rate and is experiencing major food shortages.