Mugabe's last days?

Unofficial results in the Zimbabwean presidential and parliamentary elections show that for the first time in the past 28 years Zimbabwe will be ruled by an opposition leader and the opposition will control Parliament.

In the lull of silence created by the slow release of election results by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), the MDC on Wednesday released the results that it had collated by putting together the results posted outside each voting station in the country.

It claimed victory over the ruling Zanu-PF in the weekend's parliamentary and presidential elections.

MDC secretary general Tendai Biti said that, based on the party's own tallies, it had won a total of 110 seats in parliamentary elections, including 11 lawmakers who are part of a splinter faction that is not loyal to main leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party had won 96 seats, Biti added.

The latest official results released by the electoral commission on Wednesday afternoon also showed that Zanu-PF had lost its majority in Parliament, with only a handful of results still to be announced. The MDC had 105 seats and an independent candidate, Mugabe's former information minister Jonathan Moyo, retained his seat in the 210-member chamber. Zanu-PF had won only 93 seats. Only 206 seats were contested.

The MDC also declared its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, the rightful winner of the presidential election. Biti said Tsvangirai had won 50,3% of votes and Mugabe 43,8%, with the latter's former finance minister Simba Makoni trailing with 8,2%.

"That means he [Tsvangirai] is above the 50% threshold needed to avoid a run-off," Biti told reporters. "Put simply, he has won this election ... Morgan Richard Tsvangirai is the next president of the Republic of Zimbabwe, without a run-off."

Biti added, however: "The state media have already begun to prepare the people for a run-off in 21 days. If that is the position, this party will contest the run-off."

He added that a run-off would lead to an embarrassing defeat for Mugabe, as the low turnout of the past weekend's elections would be reversed. "Even under the most difficult of situations the people's will will prevail. Even those who stayed at home will now come out and finish the business."

'Wishful' claims
However, the country's Zanu-PF Deputy Minister of Information Bright Matonga was quoted by Britain's Sky television as saying the MDC's claims were "wishful".

"President Mugabe is going nowhere," he told Sky in a telephone interview. "We are not going to be pressurised into anything." He also told the BBC: "If the MDC thinks they have won, why don't they wait. What is urgent? Let it come from official sources."

The MDC called on Mugabe to concede. "We appeal to certain sectors to simply concede and avoid embarrassment," Biti said.

When asked if he was concerned about the increased number of security forces roaming the streets, Biti said this was to be expected. "Every policeman, soldier and CIO [central intelligence officer] must know they are stakeholders in the new Zimbabwe."

He told journalists that he was recently stopped by police for speeding and, when they realised who he was, they asked him for MDC T-shirts.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on Wednesday that the delay in publishing Zimbabwe's official election results was a "calculated tactic" fuelling suspicion that authorities did not want to accept them.

"A delay in announcing the outcome can only be seen as a deliberate and calculated tactic," he said in a statement on Zimbabwe in the House of Commons. "It gives substance to the suspicion that the authorities are reluctant to accept the will of the people."

He said that there is "an international consensus that the will of the Zimbabwean people must be properly revealed and respected".

"Last Saturday the people of Zimbabwe made their choice. Outside the 9 400 polling stations the tallies have been posted. The Zimbabwean Electoral Commission knows what those results are, and has a duty to announce them."

Story reproduced from The Mail and Guardian online