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MDC pre-empts ZEC, claims 'historic' victory
ZIMBABWE’S opposition claimed victory on Sunday based on early
results from an election in which it is trying to unseat President Robert
Mugabe after 28 years in power.
"It's a historic moment for all of us. We have won this election, we have won this election," Tendai Biti, secretary general of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), told reporters, diplomats and observers at a briefing.
The opposition has accused Mugabe of employing election-rigging tactics to stay in power despite Zimbabwe's economic woes and African observers say they detected fraud in Saturday's ballot.
Biti said his party's election agents had reported that early results posted at polling stations showed MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai was projected to win 66 percent of the vote in the capital Harare, an opposition stronghold.
He said Tsvangirai had made significant inroads in Mugabe's rural strongholds by leading in the southern province of Masvingo and Mashonaland Central Province, north of Harare, where the MDC has not won a parliamentary seat since 2000.
Tsvangirai's winning trend had also extended to Mugabe's home province of Mashonaland West, where the MDC had taken a rural parliamentary seat, said Biti.
He said that in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo, another opposition power base, Tsvangirai had a slight edge over former Finance Minister Simba Makoni -- also standing against Mugabe.
But Makoni was leading in Zimbabwe's south-western Matabeleland South Province with 45 percent of the vote.
"This is just a sample of what we are getting from every province. In our view we cannot possibly see a (reverse) of this trend," said Biti, adding the MDC would announce more results at 0800 GMT.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said it would start to announce official results later on Sunday.
Voting slips were
being counted at the 9,000 polling booths where ballots were cast on
Saturday, not only for a president of the troubled southern African
nation but members of a 210-strong parliament, the senate as well as
councillors.
But even before the polls closed on Saturday, Mugabe's main challenger
and foreign observers had cast grave doubt about the validity of the
ballot, alleging the electoral roll had been stuffed with phantom voters.
With the West having accused 84-year-old Mugabe of rigging the last
presidential election in 2002, monitors from European Union countries
and the United States were all excluded this time as were nearly all
foreign media.
As he cast his ballot on Saturday, Tsvangirai said he expected to win
but claimed his party had uncovered evidence of widespread vote-rigging,
including the names of a million "ghost" voters registered
in a northern region.
"Victory is assured in spite of the regime's attempt to subvert
the will of the people," Tsvangirai, who was badly beaten up by
members of Mugabe's security forces last year, told reporters.
Similar accusations came from a pan-African team of monitors, which
complained to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission that 8,450 voters had
been registered on a patch of deserted land in northern Harare.
"Despite the fact that the area is empty, voters were registered
using addresses of the empty stands," stated the letter, a copy
of which was shown to AFP by the observers on condition of anonymity.
Mugabe shrugged off any suggestion of vote-rigging, warning the MDC
to respect any announcement on the result.
"We don't rig elections. I cannot sleep with my conscience if I
have rigged," he said as he cast his ballot in Harare.
The election comes at a time when Zimbabwe is grappling with the impact
of the world's highest rate of inflation -- officially put at 100,580.2
percent -- and an unemployment level which has breached the 80 percent
mark.
Once seen as the region's breadbasket, the country is now suffering
from previously unheard of shortages of even the most basic foodstuffs
such as cooking oil and bread.
The president has blamed the country's economic woes on the European
Union and the United States, which imposed sanctions on his inner circle
after he was accused of rigging his 2002 re-election. He has portrayed
the election as a chance to stand up against the West and in particular
Britain.
Tsvangirai has
urged his followers to refrain from violence while also warning that
the government would be unable to contain an "overwhelming groundswell
of popular feeling" if he is not declared the winner.
- Reuters/AFP/Staff Reporter
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