Mugabe wins poll, amid claims of rigging

 



  HARARE, March 13 (AFP) - Zimbabwe's long-time ruler Robert 
Mugabe swept to victory Wednesday in Presidential elections in a 
vote that challenger Morgan Tsvangirai declared was rigged and 
unacceptable.

  Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede announced on state television 
that Mugabe was re-elected with 1,685,212 votes against 
1,258,758 votes for Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for 
Democratic Change (MDC).

  `I ... therefore declare Robert Mugabe the winner for the office 
of the presidency of Zimbabwe,' Mudede said.

  Observers had warned that should the outcome be seen to have 
been rigged, violence could explode across the volatile southern 
African nation.

  As the results were being announced, about 100 heavily armed 
soldiers moved into Zimbabwe's second city Bulawayao and 
surrounded the MDC offices, where opposition officials had 
gathered.

  Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi has put security forces on 
the highest level of alert, according to state media.

  Police roadblocks were seen on the main roads leading to central 
Harare, security forces were patrolling the city and six police 
officers were stationed outside MDC headquarters.

  
Tsvangirai rejected Mugabe's election victory out of hand.

  `The election was massively rigged,' he told a packed press 
conference. `We therefore as MDC do not accept this result.'

  Foreign governments all but dismissed the outcome even before it 
was announced, threatening to leave Mugabe internationally 
isolated despite his victory.

  British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw cited `pretty strong' 
evidence that Mugabe has `stolen' Zimbabwe's vote, an outcome he 
said would have `enormous implications for the nature of our 
relationship with Zimbabwe.'

  US State Department spokeswoman Lynn Cassel said: `While we must 
wait for the final results, it is abundantly clear that this was 
a seriously flawed election.'

  The MDC leadership was due to meet later Wednesday to discuss 
the poll results, and Tsvangirai was due to address a media 
conference afterwards.

  `We have a national executive meeting ... where we will be 
looking at the figures and give the reaction of the party,' said 
David Coltart, an MDC MP.

  `To put it mildly the figures are very odd, with very low 
turnouts in the cities and massive ones in the rural areas, 
which is unprecedented in this country,' he said.

  Polling stations in Harare were reduced by 32 per cent in favour 
of an increase of voting outlets in rural areas, considered 
Mugabe's support base.

  Of 882,176 people registered to vote in Harare Province, 439,656 
or 49.8 per cent actually did so during the three days of 
polling that began Saturday and saw mile-long queues across the 
capital.

  The MDC, charging that the Mugabe government had followed a 
deliberate strategy of impeding the urban vote, went to the High 
Court and won an extra day of voting on Monday, but polls opened 
several hours late, and only an additional 24,000 votes were 
cast.

  The election is the hardest fought battle for Zimbabwe's top 
post since liberation war hero Mugabe took over after 
independence from Britain in 1980.

  `The election was preceded by months of government-orchestrated 
violence meant to intimidate voters (and) the opposition was 
repeatedly harassed and prevented from campaigning,' she said.

  Turnout across the southern African country was an estimated 66 
per cent in an election fraught by violence, intimidation and 
intense legal wrangling over civic rights and electoral rules.

  Even after the polls closed Monday, Mugabe's government kept up 
the pressure on the opposition by charging MDC Secretary General 
Welshman Ncube with high treason, which the party dismissed as a 
smear tactic. Ncube, along with Tsvangirai and four other top 
party officials, had been accused last month of plotting to 
assassinate the President.

  The tumultuous campaign grabbed international headlines and 
sparked diplomatic rows that landed Mugabe with sanctions from 
the European Union and the United States. Violence has claimed 
at least 33 lives, mostly those of opposition supporters, since 
the start of the year.

  The influential International Crisis Group (ICG) warned that the 
`risk of major violence erupting is exceedingly high' if the 
election was seen to be rigged.