Club-wielding police disperse would-be voters

Zimbabweans’ three-day wait for a chance to vote in the most bitterly contested elections in their nation’s history ended with police wielding clubs and firing tear gas.

Would-be voters, some chanting the opposition’s slogan for change, were beaten back by police at polling stations throughout the capital in what observers said appeared to be a calculated plan to disenfranchise opposition supporters.

The election was the fiercest fought in Zimbabwe’s history, pitting President Robert Mugabe - the only leader the country has known in its 22-year history - against Morgan Tsvangirai, a union organiser-turned opposition candidate.

Yesterday marked a bitter close to presidential voting with allegations of government rigging and anger over confusion at polling stations.

Last night riot police swept into polling stations that had remained open in a third court-ordered day of voting and abruptly shut them down even though hundreds of voters still remained in line. Government officials had earlier promised that anyone still in line would be allowed to vote.

Police fired eight tear gas canisters and shot into the air at a polling station in the Harare neighbourhood of Glen Norah to disperse 600 people waiting to vote. When told to go home, they began chanting: ‘‘Change, change, we want to vote!’’

Officials from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change said Mugabe was trying to prevent people from voting in the opposition stronghold as part of a widespread plan to steal the race. Last night, opposition lawyers asked the High Court to order a fourth day of voting, but the judge rejected the appeal.

At one Harare polling station, the presiding officer, escorted by police, came out to the voters and marked a distance about 100 yards from the station and announced that was where the line ended. The voters refused to budge and began arguing with police and officials before being dispersed.

‘‘Since independence I’ve never seen such a thing and I wonder why they’ve done so,’’ said F Ncube, a 50 year-old factory worker.

On Sunday night, the scheduled end of the two-day vote, the Harare High Court ordered the government to extend voting countrywide for a third day after seeing the huge lines at many Harare polling stations.

Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa said that voting would only be extended in Harare and a nearby township. Many polling stations in the rest of the country had already been dismantled, he said.

Anyone criticising the election was ‘‘spreading malicious propaganda’’, he added.

But Harare’s polling stations did not open until noon, after many voters had given up and gone home or to work.

‘‘They don’t want us to change things,’’ said Never Taraswa, a 37-year-old unemployed man waiting to vote in the poor Glen View neighbourhood.

Even before the Harare polls closed, authorities announced turnout figures that showed massive voting in Mugabe strongholds, with far fewer voters casting ballots in opposition areas.

Opposition officials said the reported turnouts in pro-Mugabe areas did not match the reports from their polling agents.

Mugabe led the nation to independence in 1980 and faced little dissent until recent years, when the nation’s economy collapsed and political violence - blamed mostly on the ruling party - became rampant.

The opposition party’s secretary-general and third ranking official, Welshman Ncube, was arrested yesterday in the southwestern town of Plumtree, said David Coltart, an opposition politician. Police gave no reason for the arrests, but Ncube has been charged with treason in a previous case.

A group of white farmers and American and British lawyers had also been arrested while observing the vote, officials said.

‘‘We will not succumb to this kind of intimidation,’’ Tsvangirai said. He appealed to Zimbabweans to show restraint and avoid confrontation with security forces.

Four US diplomats were also detained for several hours by Zimbabwean police Monday in the turbulent town of Chinhoyi, 75 miles north of Harare, said Bruce Warton, spokesman for the US Embassy. He said two were accredited as election observers and Zimbabwean authorities had not explained why they were detained.

Tsvangirai accused Mugabe and his ruling party of attempting to steal the election by driving opposition observers from 43% of the rural polling stations, some of the rural counting stations and discouraging voting in Harare.

In Brussels, European Union foreign ministers said yesterday they received reports of voting irregularities. Austrian Foreign Minister Benita Ferrero-Waldner said the elections ‘‘are not fair’’.

The EU has imposed limited sanctions on Zimbabwe after the government restricted its observer team. EU diplomatic missions remain in Zimbabwe.