Zimbabweans waited in long lines yesterday to cast ballots in parliamentary elections that President Robert Mugabe hopes will prove once and for all the legitimacy of a regime critics say is increasingly isolated and repressive.
Before any ballots were cast, opposition leaders and independent rights groups said the vote was already skewed by years of violence and intimidation.
Despite light rain, residents of the capital started gathering at the polls up to three hours before they opened. There were some delays as electoral officials completed last-minute preparations under the watchful eye of police.
PHOTO: AP
Mugabe accuses British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other Western leaders of backing the six-year-old Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the first party to seriously challenge his rule. He dubbed yesterday's vote the "anti-Blair election," and MDC supporters "traitors."
"My vote today will be a vote for Zimbabwe's sovereignty," said Thomas Mseruka, a 46-year-old carpenter and ardent government supporter who cast his ballot in a neighborhood of dilapidated apartment buildings in Harare. "I'll be voting to defend our country."
The opposition countered that Blair wasn't running in yesterday's poll, which it says is about Mugabe's own failings after nearly 25 years in power.
The Zimbabwean economy has shrunk 50 percent over the past five years. Unemployment is at least 70 percent. Agriculture -- the economic base of Zimbabwe -- has collapsed and at least 70 percent of the population live in poverty.
Opposition leaders blame the country's economic woes on the government's often violent seizure of thousands of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to black Zimbabweans.
Mugabe defends the program as a way of righting racial imbalances in land ownership inherited from British colonial rule, and blames food shortages on years of crippling drought.
At stake yesterday were 120 elected parliamentary seats. Mugabe appoints another 30 seats, virtually guaranteeing his Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party a majority.
Some 5.8 million of Zimbabwe's nearly 12 million people were registered to vote. But up to 3.4 million Zimbabweans who live overseas -- many of whom are believed to be opposition supporters -- were barred from casting ballots.
The opposition MDC won 57 seats in the last parliamentary election in 2000, despite what Western observers called widespread violence, intimidation and vote rigging. But it has lost six seats in subsequent by-elections.
In 2002, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai narrowly lost an equally flawed presidential poll.
Under mounting international pressure to produce a credible election result, Mugabe promised this year's balloting would be free and fair.
Despite some glitches, voting was proceeding peacefully and more quickly than in 2002, when the opposition accused officials of deliberately slowing down polling in their urban strongholds.
"Last time we just went home, came back, went home, came back, waiting to vote," said Alois Johani, a 52-year-old Harare resident. "But this time I think it will take only a few hours."
While there has been much less violence during this campaign, opposition leaders and rights groups said intimidation remained high. Residents in drought-stricken rural areas were told they could forfeit desperately needed food aid if they voted for the opposition, they said.
A series of repressive laws introduced since 2000 drastically curtailed the opposition's ability to meet, express its views and access the media. While restrictions eased in recent weeks to allow campaigning by all sides, rights groups said the damage was already done.
Mugabe's government hand-picked election observers, barring groups that were critical of previous polls.
Opposition leaders and rights groups also raised concerns about the voters' roll, which they believe is inflated with the names of hundreds of thousands of people who have died or moved away.
END OF AN ERA: The vote brings the curtain down on 20 years of socialist rule, which began in 2005 when Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer, was elected president A center-right senator and a right-wing former president are to advance to a run-off for Bolivia’s presidency after the first round of elections on Sunday, marking the end of two decades of leftist rule, preliminary official results showed. Bolivian Senator Rodrigo Paz was the surprise front-runner, with 32.15 percent of the vote cast in an election dominated by a deep economic crisis, results published by the electoral commission showed. He was followed by former Bolivian president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga in second with 26.87 percent, according to results based on 92 percent of votes cast. Millionaire businessman Samuel Doria Medina, who had been tipped
ELECTION DISTRACTION? When attention shifted away from the fight against the militants to politics, losses and setbacks in the battlefield increased, an analyst said Recent clashes in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Jubaland region are alarming experts, exposing cracks in the country’s federal system and creating an opening for militant group al-Shabaab to gain ground. Following years of conflict, Somalia is a loose federation of five semi-autonomous member states — Puntland, Jubaland, Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West — that maintain often fractious relations with the central government in the capital, Mogadishu. However, ahead of elections next year, Somalia has sought to assert control over its member states, which security analysts said has created gaps for al-Shabaab infiltration. Last week, two Somalian soldiers were killed in clashes between pro-government forces and
Ten cheetah cubs held in captivity since birth and destined for international wildlife trade markets have been rescued in Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia. They were all in stable condition despite all of them having been undernourished and limping due to being tied in captivity for months, said Laurie Marker, founder of the Cheetah Conservation Fund, which is caring for the cubs. One eight-month-old cub was unable to walk after been tied up for six months, while a five-month-old was “very malnourished [a bag of bones], with sores all over her body and full of botfly maggots which are under the
BRUSHED OFF: An ambassador to Australia previously said that Beijing does not see a reason to apologize for its naval exercises and military maneuvers in international areas China set off alarm bells in New Zealand when it dispatched powerful warships on unprecedented missions in the South Pacific without explanation, military documents showed. Beijing has spent years expanding its reach in the southern Pacific Ocean, courting island nations with new hospitals, freshly paved roads and generous offers of climate aid. However, these diplomatic efforts have increasingly been accompanied by more overt displays of military power. Three Chinese warships sailed the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand in February, the first time such a task group had been sighted in those waters. “We have never seen vessels with this capability