Voting begins in Zimbabwe election 27/06/2008 - 08:02:18
Zimbabwe holds its one-candidate presidential run-off today with President Robert Mugabe expected to orchestrate a mass turnout of voters in a show of strength designed to emphasise his hold on power.
World leaders have dismissed the runoff as a sham and Nigeria became the latest African nation to call for its postponement, but electoral officials say the election will go ahead with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's name on the ballot.
However, Mugabe sounded a conciliatory note when he said yesterday that he was "open to discussion" with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
Mugabe, who spoke at a campaign rally yesterday, until then showed little interest in talks and his government had scoffed at Tsvangirai's call on Wednesday to work together to form a transitional authority.
Tsvangirai, the only candidate facing Mugabe in the runoff, announced on Sunday he was withdrawing from today's vote because state-sponsored violence against his party had made it impossible to run. He then fled to the Dutch embassy for safety.
Tsvangirai told the BBC World Service that voters would be frog-marched to the polls.
"There could be a massive turnout, not because of the will of the people but because of the role of the military and the traditional leaders to force people to these polls," he said in an interview from the embassy.
He told his supporters not to offer resistance, for their own safety.
"They should go. If they even vote for ZANU-PF, if they even vote for Mugabe, what does that change?" he said in the BBC interview. "It makes no difference because the vote is a fraud anyway."
Mugabe's last campaign stop was in Chitungwiza, an area that has seen some of the most brutal violence against the opposition.
Earlier this month, the opposition said four activists were abducted in the region, assaulted with iron bars, clubs and guns. Their bodies were found a day later. In a separate incident, the homes of three Chitungwiza opposition councilmen and their families were firebombed on Wednesday night, but everyone escaped uninjured.
That made it a curious choice of a place to offer an olive branch, and could signal that while Mugabe is open to talks, he is not necessarily in a conciliatory mood.
Mugabe was proposing talks only after the vote, when he will point to a landslide victory and claim to be in a position of strength. Mugabe told the rally's crowd that he would be going to Egypt, where African Union heads of state were meeting on Monday. Mugabe presumably planned to attend as a victorious re-elected president.
Bright Matonga, Mugabe's deputy information minister, said the call for talks was directed at the opposition as fellow Zimbabweans.
"We want you to be part of Zimbabwe, we are willing to talk to you, but let's finish this first," Matonga said.
On the eve of the vote, businesses and factories closed down around noon. Most schools had been shut since Monday, with parents called by teachers to collect their children because there were "strangers"" camped in vacant land who were said to be Mugabe militants.
Trees and lamp posts across Harare were plastered with fresh Mugabe election posters. A few posters of Tsvangirai from the first March 29 round of voting were defaced and torn, some with his eyes gouged out.
The African Union; the Southern African Development Community, the main regional bloc; and African parliamentarians were observing the runoff, but many believe they would not have sufficient people on the ground to make a difference.
The Foreign Ministry of Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, said the vote should be postponed because it was "doubtful" that a credible election could be held.
Tsvangirai was first in a field of four in the first round of the presidential election on March 29, but the official tally said he did not gain the 50% plus one vote needed to avoid a runoff against the second place finisher, the 84-year-old Mugabe.
That campaign was generally peaceful, but the runoff has been overshadowed by violence and intimidation, especially in rural areas.
Independent human rights groups say at least 85 people have died and tens of thousands have been displaced from their homes, most of them opposition supporters.
Zimbabwe opposition party's No. 2 official, who has been charged with treason, was granted bail and released from jail yesterday.
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Zimbabwe holds its one-candidate presidential run-off today with President Robert Mugabe expected to orchestrate a mass turnout of voters in a show of strength designed to emphasise his hold on power.
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