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After Losing Elections, Tsvangirai Considers Street Protests Against Mugabe
By Reuters
Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change said on Friday it could take to the streets to challenge President Robert Mugabe’s victory in elections it rejects as a farce and which face scepticism from the West.
No results of the presidential vote on July 31 have been announced. But Mugabe’s ZANU-PF has already claimed a resounding win and interim tallies of the parliamentary count suggest a massive victory for the 89-year-old, Africa’s oldest president, who has ruled since independence from Britain in 1980.
While the African Union’s monitoring mission chief has called Wednesday’s peaceful polls generally “free and fair” – Western observers were kept out by Harare – domestic monitors have described them as “seriously compromised” by registration flaws that may have disenfranchised up to a million people.
Observers from the Southern African Development Community, a regional group, described the elections as “free and peaceful” and urged Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai to accept the result.
Tsvangirai, who faces political annihilation in his third attempt to oust Mugabe at the ballot box, has already denounced the vote as a “huge farce” marred by polling day irregularities and intimidation by ZANU-PF.
Western rejection of the regional African verdict on the election could stir tensions with the continent. Acceptance of Mugabe’s victory will be criticised in countries that say he is a despot guilty of rights abuses and ruining the economy.
The mood on the streets of the capital Harare was subdued on Friday as the MDC leadership met to chart the next move, with everything from a legal challenge to street protests on the table.
“Demonstrations and mass action are options,” party spokesman Douglas Mwonzora said.
Some disappointed voters expressed disbelief at the election outcome. “This is daylight robbery, but I think the MDC should have realized that, without violence, ZANU-PF would still do something to cheat,” said McDonald Sibanda, a 34-year-old insurance salesman. “I’m disgusted by all this.”
An MDC protest campaign against the election results could elicit a fierce response from security forces and pro-Mugabe militias, who were accused of killing 200 MDC supporters after Mugabe lost the first round of the last election in 2008.
Justice minister and ZANU-PF deputy legal affairs secretary Patrick Chinamasa scoffed at the MDC criticism of the vote.
“Really? When 3.95 million people go to vote in cold weather you call it a farce?” he told a news conference. Chinamasa said defeated candidates could take their complaints to the courts.
He also hinted that ZANU-PF could, if the election confirms its new two-thirds majority in parliament, seek to amend Zimbabwe’s revised constitution adopted earlier this year, which now limits presidential terms to two five-year stints.
“The constitution may need cleaning up,” he said, although the essence of the charter would not be changed.
Former colonial ruler Britain, a sharp critic of Mugabe in the past, said it was concerned that Zimbabwe had not enacted important electoral reforms before the vote.
The U.S. government, which maintains sanctions against Mugabe, said “a peaceful and orderly election day does not by itself guarantee a free and fair outcome”.
“Now the critical test is whether voting tabulation is conducted in a credible and transparent manner, and whether the outcome truly reflects the will of the people of Zimbabwe,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in Washington.
Europe and the United States now face the awkward decision of what to do with the sanctions they have in place against Mugabe and his inner circle.
The Western scepticism contrasted with the assessment made by the AU election observer team leader, former Nigerian military leader and civilian president Olusegun Obasanjo, who while acknowledging “minor incidents” surrounding the July 31 poll said they were not enough to affect the overall result.
Tsvangirai has called the election “not credible” and appealed to the AU to investigate.
But Obasanjo, whose own re-election in Nigeria in 2003 was marked by violence and widespread fraud allegations, declined to comment on the MDC leader’s assertion, calling him “an interested party”.
The AU verdict, echoed by President Jacob Zuma of Zimbabwe’s powerful neighbour South Africa, suggests the MDC’s appeals for external pressure on Mugabe may be falling on deaf ears
Zuma, main guarantor of the unity government in Zimbabwe brokered after the 2008 unrest, chose to focus on the orderly conduct of the poll. “Something good has happened in Zimbabwe. The elections were so peaceful,” he told broadcaster SABC.
But a Mugabe victory would pose problems for the West.
“This leaves the EU and U.S. in an extremely difficult situation,” said Piers Pigou, director of the southern Africa project of International Crisis Group in Johannesburg.
The European Union, which relaxed some sanctions early this year after a new constitution was approved in a referendum, said it was too early to assess the election’s fairness.
Given the sanctions, the view from the West is key to the future of Zimbabwe’s economy, which is still struggling with the aftermath of a decade-long slump and hyperinflation that ended in 2009 when the worthless Zimbabwe dollar was scrapped.
Posted by
ntekunya
August 3, 2013 at 8:44 am
Yaaaaku tata eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Mandevu
August 3, 2013 at 10:03 am
Kwena amagoregore..how honestly can they re-elect this despot?Ninshi they enjoy suffering…watch this space.
Operation Changanya style
August 4, 2013 at 10:11 am
They did not re-elect him, he cheated just like last time and his weapon is violence & fear!
battered, traumatized, intimitdated
August 4, 2013 at 11:27 am
You are talking crap I do nt think you know very much about anything Zimbabwean so shut up.
1 Diva!
August 3, 2013 at 10:14 am
I 4 one has no problem wit mugabe’s victory coz his the last dictator in africa whom th americans fear, if he looses the whole american will swam nd invade africa. Wait nd see!!!
motherbody
August 3, 2013 at 10:31 am
1 Diva kanshi naiwe nauyikopa tefyo, umwaiche shangelai ngaalionaula zim_zim nga ka ftj
Vuto
August 3, 2013 at 11:18 am
Mugabe the true son of africa. Mwa
Siniq
August 3, 2013 at 4:16 pm
Get lost!
Kilo volts
August 3, 2013 at 11:56 am
That’s Bob for us!! Uncle bob
Kwerekwere
August 3, 2013 at 12:00 pm
Do Zimbabweans love fleeing their country for South Africa? Only senile people can keep a relic for 40 years in power. Look how all neighbours have changed their govts except for Zimbabwe. Its now the end for this country
South African
August 3, 2013 at 4:13 pm
Koma Ma Zimbo they are a dissapointment. They love to be tortured. They love running away from Zimbabwe. They love buying bread at 4 billion Zimdollars. They love Muzunguwangaism. They should be left to commit their own suicide. SADC just get out of there. and close your borders
chama chama
August 3, 2013 at 2:43 pm
they SAY mugabe has 100 ways of winning an election, and so far he HAS only used 5. is this not our president’s mentor, look at the party names and symbols. Zambians be ready for serious manipulation from mugabe’s best student. especially after the loses in the by elections, they will exchange notes, and a possibility of doctoring the results can be very high, but bravo ECZ.
hachigabala
August 3, 2013 at 5:44 pm
HH for Zim has lost. Lets hope zam HH has learnt something. How do you expect to win elections with only Bulawayo as your stronghold?
Gggg
August 3, 2013 at 7:20 pm
Mugabe the facking old man he is gonna die in the chair!
AIDS patient
August 3, 2013 at 7:34 pm
Ukaifwila po fye
sugo power
August 3, 2013 at 9:40 pm
I can’t understand the Zim people,balesunga ulya umukote uwapwa pachipuna,these people are still sleeping.
Zambia is for all Zambians
August 4, 2013 at 7:58 am
Hachigabala, it is not only Matabeleland which is feeling the pinch of Zimbabwe’s problems. If the Shona’s are voting on tribal lines, then they must be missing the point.
John Chinena
August 4, 2013 at 9:39 am
Fima fontima ifyaku Zim. Some how I think they r cursed because of being too proud when their economy seemed or was better than ours and many other african countries. They didt like foreigners where are they now? In foriegn countries lol. Wake up Zimbabeans I feel sorry for you!!
tyrant lizard
August 4, 2013 at 10:20 am
I’m reading a book titled THE FEAR a chronicle of the mess that is Zimbabwe. ‘The Fear’ is an important book detailing the violent realities, the grotesque injustices, the hunger, the sadness, and a portrait of Mugabe, the tyrant who is the cause of it all. It is especially valuable because Godwin, born in Zimbabwe, is passionate and personal, as well as bold in his travel and scrupulous in his documentation.”
nha
August 4, 2013 at 10:22 am
how do you guys equate president mugabes win to suffering. the zim economy is already perfoming equally well to yours .he has polices that empower pple and does not bootlick the west.
and ask youselves what have zambians achieved economically by the many leaders you have changed
NOTHING .
battered, traumatized, intimitdated
August 4, 2013 at 11:02 am
Can you honestly tell the villagers of Matobo whose children were mercilessly thrown down mine shafts that they have now found peace with the devil?
What a load of rubbish!
tyrant lizard
August 4, 2013 at 10:27 am
“In the savage gangster world of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, Peter Godwin was able to go where other reporters cannot and tell us what others could not—because he is Zimbabwean, and knows what his country has been and could be. You do not know whether to be more shocked by the monstrousness of the regime’s thugs or the luminous humanity of its opponents.”
- James Traub, author of The Best Intentions: Kofi Annan and the UN in the Era of American World Power
tyrant lizard
August 4, 2013 at 10:29 am
In mid 2008, after nearly three decades of increasingly tyrannical rule, Robert Mugabe, the 84-year-old Robespierre of Zimbabwe, lost an election. But instead of conceding power, he launched a brutal campaign of terror against his own citizens. Peter Godwin, author of the brilliant memoir When a Crocodile Eats the Sun, was one of the few outside observers to bear witness to the terrifying period that Zimbabweans call, simply, The Fear.
tyrant lizard
August 4, 2013 at 10:38 am
THE FEAR is the brave and astonishing record of a dictatorship gone mad.
battered, traumatized, intimitdated
August 4, 2013 at 10:47 am
Mugabe’s violence against political dissidence began as early as February 1981 (just one year into his administration) when his notorious “Fifth Brigade” used ruthless force to subdue Matabeleland. Massacring up to 20 000 people, the methods used by the Fifth Brigade in the crushing of resistance signified the approach that Mugabe would continue to use throughout his rule.
battered, traumatized, intimitdated
August 4, 2013 at 10:50 am
[Sham elections have not been effective propaganda in convincing the world that Mugabe is a democratically elected, legitimate first citizen]
Sir Jeff
August 4, 2013 at 12:09 pm
Old man, Get the moron n break the mangwam. I want to see him cry like my 2yr old daughter. Teach the ****** ***** a lesson he’ll live to remember. athat moronic sellout. I wanted him lose just like that coz Africa ant afford such simpletons
Saddam Gaddafi Amin Banda lll
August 4, 2013 at 5:10 pm
@kwerekwere I am equaly perplexed with Zimbabweans. Enjoying suffering sure. Are they brain washed (zombies) ? I feel like whipping them all with my belt may be they can open their eyes. Shiiiiiit!!! Chankalipa mwe they are our brothers n sisters but this is very bizzare
MWACHINDALU
August 4, 2013 at 6:16 pm
ZIMBABEANS , SHONAS , MAGOREGORE , MAKARANGA ARE THE WORST IDIOTS THE WORLD HSA HAVE KNOWN, THE SECOND ARE Bembas
Anonymous
August 4, 2013 at 9:27 pm
son of a dog!
edzi
August 4, 2013 at 6:30 pm
Zimbabwe will be better than Zambia. western nations will not develop African nations but ourselves. Zimbabweans are not suffering but going through an experience. morgan is western controlled leader.
lets work hard with our leaders and stop depending on western hand outs.
Live wire
August 4, 2013 at 8:40 pm
…long life mugabe.USA knows you better.real son of Africa.
Idi Amin Dada
August 4, 2013 at 8:54 pm
Live wire and Edzi are u twins?