Mugabe opponents warn of votes fraud

Thousands of Zimbabweans flocked to closing election campaign rallies today as opposition hopefuls urged people to be on guard against any attempts at rigging by President Robert Mugabe.

In their first joint statement, rivals leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara and former finance minister and ruling party loyalist Simba Makoni said “severe discrepancies” could indicate fraud.

As an example they said up to 75 voters had registered as living at at addresses that turned out to be bare dirt in one sprawling district of northern Harare.

There is “a very well thought out and sophisticated plan to steal the election from us,” said Mr Makoni, an independent candidate who spoke for all three groups opposing Mugabe.

Mr Tsvangirai urged voters to remain at polling stations after they vote tomorrow to stop any interference, and he urged public servants not to help with fraud.

“Mugabe cannot rig elections by himself,” Tsvangirai said. “If someone tells you to falsify the results of the elections, ignore the instructions, because it is unlawful. Don’t be used to do something shameful.”

The independent Zimbabwe Democracy Now group was offering rewards for tips on alleged fraud sent to its website.

The group said a senior army commander and two air force officers told it that the military was to be used to falsely fill out thousands of ballot papers. It said it had passed the information to official election observers.

At an opposition news conference, leaders said they had yet to receive full nationwide voters’ lists so they could check for duplicate names, addresses, personal identification numbers and the identities of dead or ghost voters.

Among the names still listed to vote are Ian Smith, the last white prime minister of Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was known before independence in 1980, who died last year in South Africa, as well as his former law and order minister Desmond Lardner-Burke, who died nearly 30 years ago.

The opposition said official figures on voter registration show that between December and February newly registered voters increased by up to 11% in sparsely populated rural areas that are ruling party strongholds, compared with just 2% in urban opposition strongholds.

The Electoral Commission says 5.9 million people are eligible to vote in the combined presidential, parliamentary and local council elections.

Mr Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change has displayed documents leaked from the state security printer showing 9 million ballot papers ordered by the election commission. It alleges the surplus will be used for rigging.

In addition, independent monitors, civil societies and church groups say new electoral boundaries have been drawn up to favour Mugabe’s rural power base, and there are too few urban polling stations to handle the expected crush of opposition supporters.

Mugabe also is accused of trying to buy votes by handing out tractors, generators and state-subsidised food in the country suffering an economic meltdown with inflation of more than 100,000%.

Meanwhile the chiefs of police, army, air force, prison service and the intelligence agency warned of a crackdown against anyone trying to protest over the results of the election.

They said the armed forces were “on full alert” and “up to the task in thwarting all threats to national security” during the elections.