ZIMBABWE'S state electoral commission abruptly stopped a vote count yesterday and announced the presidential election results after the opposition discovered 120,000 suspicious extra ballots.
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) claimed that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) stopped crucial verification processes that would have revealed Robert Mugabe's supporters had "manufactured" extra votes to avoid a humiliating first-round
defeat for the 84-year-old president.
The commission said the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, won 47.9 per cent of all votes, beating Mr Mugabe, who won 43.2 per cent of votes.
But because neither candidate won more than 50 per cent of all votes, a run-off will be necessary, the chief elections officer Lovemore Sekeraymayi said.
Mr Tsvangirai has always claimed he won the 29 March poll outright. His party says the five-week delay in announcing results has allowed Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party to fiddle the figures, with a deeply compromised electoral commission.
The commission is headed by former military lawyer George Chiweshe, a Mugabe loyalist.
An opposition official told The Scotsman yesterday that the MDC had been told of the official voting tally on Thursday, when election agents for Mr Tsvangirai and Mr Mugabe and the two other presidential candidates went to the ZEC's National Command Centre in Harare.
The opposition immediately told ZEC it "would not accept the result", he said.
Previously ZEC officials had indicated that if there was a dispute over vote tallies, returns from every one of the more than 9,000 polling stations would have to be examined.
Mr Tsvangirai's election agents agreed and the process got under way at 10am yesterday, said the source, but two hours into the count, the commission suddenly called a halt.
"They said no verification would take place," the source said. The MDC was prevented from examining any more voting returns. The commission then made a snap announcement of results, giving Mr Tsvangirai around 2.4 per cent fewer votes than he expected.
Had Mr Tsvangirai's election agents been allowed to examine the original returns from each polling station, they would have been able to prove that the electoral commission's final figures were flawed, the source said.
The electoral commission said yesterday Mr Mugabe's former finance minister, Simba Makoni, an independent candidate, had won 8.3 per cent of the total vote. Mr Makoni believes he won about 9 per cent, sources said.
Opposition spokesman Nelson Chamisa said: "This whole thing is a scandal, scandalous daylight robbery.
"We won this election outright, and yet what we are being given here as the outcome are some fudged figures meant to save Mugabe and Zanu-PF."
But the deputy information minister, Bright Matonga, said: "
There's no outright winner, pointing to a run-off.
"The laws of Zimbabwe and the constitution clearly state that for one to be an outright winner, they have to achieve 50 per cent plus one. If no-one achieves that, then there's going to be a run-off, so we are following our constitution, not people's wishes."
The electoral commission said it would announce the date of a run-off soon. Electoral laws say it must be held within three weeks of a first-round announcement.
There are ominous signs that Mr Mugabe's party had been preparing for a run-off long before yesterday's announcement.
The opposition says Zanu-PF thugs, police and soldiers have been terrorising party supporters in rural areas since 1 April.
Mr Tsvangirai has threatened not to take part in a second round of voting unless observers from the international community and the regional SADC grouping are present.
Yesterday party officials said he was likely to be forced into a run-off under protest.
"He's between the devil and the deep blue sea," said one source. "How can you have a run-off when your guys have been beaten into the ground?"
TERROR AND MUTILATIONZIMBABWEAN police have arrested scores of teachers who doubled up as election agents in the past few weeks, accusing them of "cheating" Mr Mugabe of votes. Many are still in police cells, despite the start of the school term on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, security guards at the private Avenues Clinic in Harare say victims of political violence being brought for treatment in the past few days have "missing limbs".
Safari operators in the northern Guruve and Muzarabani areas have also spoken of seeing villagers with horrific injuries to their hands. The MDC's symbol is an open hand.
In a terrifying echo of events during the 1970s bush war, teenagers are being abducted from their parents' rural huts for "re-education", The Scotsman has learnt.
The MDC says close to 1,000 of its supporters have had to seek hospital treatment for injuries sustained during political attacks.
The full article contains 801 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
