Confusion surrounds Zimbabwe court ruling

Hours after the official closing time for polling stations, Zimbabwean voters stood their ground early today, determined to cast their votes in the most dramatic election in their country’s history.

While government officials said polling stations would stay open to allow those in line to vote after hours, confusion surrounded a judge’s order to extend voting for a third day in presidential elections that pit President Robert Mugabe, the only leader the country has known since independence 22 years ago, against opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

But shortly after the High Court ruling, 60 riot police charged into the Glen Norah polling station in the capital, Harare, chasing away between 2,500 and 3,000 people who had been waiting to vote, said an opposition observer, who said he was too frightened to give his name.

The police locked the polling station and then moved into the street, threatening anyone who approached the station.

Despite pre-election violence and intimidation that opposition officials blame on Mugabe loyalists, voters headed out in record numbers to cast their ballots during the weekend vote especially in urban areas like Harare.

As lines stretched into the thousands even after polling stations were scheduled to officially close last night, High Court Judge Ben Hlatshwayo ruled that polls stay open on Monday across the country.

The government said it would appeal against the High Court ruling to the Supreme Court, the highest court in the country. State election officials had rejected the idea of an extension and said that only those already in line at some 10 polling stations in the capital would be allowed to vote after the polling deadline.

At a voting station in Kuwadzana, outside of Harare, polling officials began sealing ballot boxes last night, saying they were tired and would return Monday morning. But before the crowd was told, more than 60 riot police arrived and ordered voters waiting in line to leave.

The crowd groaned and booed, but most people quietly dispersed.

’’This is part of rigging,’’ said one voter, M. Sithole, as he turned to go home. ‘‘We don’t understand what’s happening here. Six years is a long time for a person to rule without the people telling him to.’’

Learnmore Jongwe, spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, told journalists that the government was defying the court order by closing polls and even attacking voters in line.

’’This evening there was a deliberate decision to deny hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans the right to vote,’’ Jongwe told journalists.

Voters throughout the capital promised not to leave until they had a chance to choose between Mugabe and Tsvangirai, a former trade union leader who has promised to transform the nation.

After the 7pm closing time in one Harare township, Budiriro, several thousand voters waited in a slow-moving line as a half dozen riot police with bayonets on their rifles patrolled the crowd.

Precinct presiding officer Priscilla Mufunba said the station would stay open until everyone in line had voted, but lamented that ‘‘as long as we are open, they will never stop coming’’.

The people of Harare’s poor Glen View neighbourhood remained determined to vote, though many had waited in huge lines for more than a day and half and were still far from the ballot box. Worried that election officials might try to close the station, many swore they would not let the ballot boxes leave without their votes.

’’We will block the doors or we will die here,’’ said P. Philgo, an unemployed 27-year-old. There were still 1,500 people waiting to vote there two hours after the polls officially closed, but those in line said many had given up and gone home.

Tsvangirai, Mugabe’s most competitive challenger since independence in 1980, cast his vote yesterday his 50th birthday and called for a two-day extension of the vote to deal with the high turnout, which most observers believe benefits his bid.

Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar, the former military ruler of Nigeria who leads the Commonwealth observer mission, joined other monitors in calling for an extension of the voting.

Many voters in Harare spent both Saturday and Sunday nights sleeping outside polling stations.

Tsvangirai is promising to revive the economy and end corruption.

Mugabe, however, has painted Tsvangirai as a servant to white interests and Western powers who want to see the country fail. Two weeks ago, Tsvangirai was charged with treason in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate Mugabe, an allegation he has denied.

Mugabe has promised public works initiatives if he is re-elected and has pledged to continue his controversial programme of seizing white-owned farms and giving them to landless blacks. Whites make up less than 1% of the country’s population but own about a third of the nation’s commercial farmland.

In a statement last night, opposition officials said attacks on movement polling monitors and supporters continued yesterday throughout the country. ‘‘The attacks appear to be systematically implemented and are clearly aimed at preventing (opposition) officials from observing the voting process in certain areas,’’ it said.