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Mugabe's Party Loses in Recount
Reuters
Saturday 26 April 2008
Harare - President Robert Mugabe's party has failed to secure control of Zimbabwe's
parliament in a partial recount of the March 29 election, results showed on
Saturday, handing the ruling party its first defeat in 28 years.
Results of a parallel presidential poll have not been released and Mugabe has
been preparing for a run-off against Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Tsvangirai says he won outright and his party has rejected both the recount
and any run-off.
For the first time since Zimbabwe's independence from Britain in 1980, the
MDC wrested a parliamentary majority from Mugabe's ZANU-PF in the election,
triggering a recount of 23 out of 210 constituencies.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said that in the 14 out of 23 seats recounted
so far, the original results were confirmed.
The commission had ordered the recount after ZANU-PF accused election officials
of taking bribes to undercount votes for Mugabe and his ruling party and committing
other electoral fraud. A number of election officials have been arrested.
To win back a parliamentary majority, the ruling party needed to win nine more
seats than it did in the first count. Only nine are left to be counted - but
ZANU-PF already won three of those in the first count.
Delays in the recount and in announcing the presidential result have brought
growing international pressure on Mugabe, 84, and stoked fears of vote-rigging
and bloodshed in a country suffering an economic collapse.
"This recount was a charade and a flawed process. The attempt was to reverse
the will of the people and we rejected the recount from the onset. But I can
confirm that our earlier majority has been reconfirmed according to information
we are receiving," MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told Reuters.
Crackdown
On Friday, Mugabe resorted to strong measures used in the past to keep the
opposition in check, in what Human Rights Watch said was a stepped up "campaign
of organized terror and torture against opposition activists and ordinary Zimbabweans."
The government denies it is waging a violent campaign.
Armed riot police raided the MDC's headquarters and detained scores of people
in the toughest measures against the opposition since the disputed elections.
The MDC said those detained included supporters who had sought refuge with
them after fleeing various parts of the country "where the regime has been
unleashing brutal violence."
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said 215 people had been arrested in the
raid, and no one had been charged yet.
"We have released the elderly and women with babies. There are about 30
of them. We are still doing profiles for the others and checking with their
provinces on whether they have committed any crimes there," he said.
The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights said 62 people had come
in for treatment over three days, some with broken limbs and one with an axe
wound at the back of his head.
Former colonial power Britain, which Mugabe blames for Zimbabwe's troubles,
has called for an arms embargo and requested a U.N. Security Council meeting
on the crisis.
Britain said it deplored the escalating violence in Zimbabwe and called for
a United Nations mission to inspect human rights abuses. Prime Minister Gordon
Brown said Britain would step up diplomatic efforts ahead of the Security Council
meeting.
South Africa's U.N. envoy Dumisani Kumalo said someone from the U.N. secretariat
would brief the 15-nation council, probably on Tuesday, on developments in Zimbabwe.
The Western diplomat on the council said any action in the form of a statement
or resolution was unlikely. But the meeting would be useful in increasing pressure
on Mugabe.
Mugabe, a hero of the independence struggle, accuses the opposition of conspiring
with Western critics to end his almost three decades in power, which began with
high hopes that Zimbabwe would become an African model of democratic and economic
success.
Today, Zimbabweans face severe shortages of basic goods and an inflation rate
of 165,000 percent - the world's highest.
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Additional reporting by Chris Chinaka in Harare, Jeremy Lovell in
London; Writing by Caroline Drees; Editing by Janet Lawrence.
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