Mugabe keeps his opponents guessing

Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe managed to keep his opponents off balance and guessing today as the question of who actually won last week’s presidential election remained unanswered.

His main opponents accused him of “unleashing a war” against them, some reports claimed he was considering a re-run of the voting and others feared he was about to declare a state of emergency and use it to crush his challengers.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has still not released official election results from Saturday’s vote, despite increasing international pressure.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change said its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, won the presidency outright, but that it is prepared to compete in a run-off.

MDC secretary-general Tendai Biti said hotel rooms used as offices by the opposition at a Harare hotel were ransacked today by intruders he believed were either police or agents of the feared Central Intelligence Organisation.

“Mugabe has started a crackdown,” Mr Biti said. “It is quite clear he has unleashed a war.”

Mr Biti said the raid at the Meikles Hotel targeted “certain people ... including myself,” but that Mr Tsvangirai was “safe.”

Meanwhile armed riot police arrested five foreign journalists.

Zimbabwe lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa said two of them were jailed and would be charged with practising journalism without licenses. She said the other three were released.

Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, said Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent Barry Bearak was among the reporters initially detained. It was not clear whether Bearak was among the reporters still being held.

Yesterday Mr Tsvangirai tried to reassure security chiefs who vowed a week ago not to serve anyone but Mugabe, according to a close source.

But a meeting with seven generals was cancelled when the officers said that they had been ordered not to attend.

The man, who asked not to be named, produced a copy of a letter signed by Mr Tsvangirai that promised generous retirement packages for those unwilling to serve in an MDC government. It also promised not to take back farms given to officers under Mugabe’s land reform program, except in cases in which an officer got several farms or if land was being neglected.

Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since his guerrilla army helped force an end to white minority rule and bring about an independent Zimbabwe in 1980, but his popularity has been battered by an economic freefall that followed the often-violent seizures of white-owned commercial farms in 2000.

Seemingly laying the groundwork for a Mugabe run-off campaign, the state-run Herald newspaper said the ruling ZANU-PF party was running neck and neck with the opposition in the vote count, and it highlighted divisions among Mugabe’s foes.

Reports said leaders of the ruling party scheduled a meeting today to discuss the run-off.

Diplomats in Harare and at the United Nations said Mugabe was planning to declare a 90-day delay to a presidential run-off to give security forces time to clamp down.

The law requires a run-off be held within 21 days of an election, but Mugabe could change that with a presidential decree, a Western diplomat in Harare said.