Mugabe's opponents call for strike over ballot delays

Zimbabwe’s opposition has called for a general strike tomorrow in protest at the continuing chaos over the country’s delayed presidential election results.

The Movement for Democratic Change failed today in a legal attempt to force Robert Mugabe to reveal the results.

The High Court, packed with his supporters, turned down an application which would have forced Zimbabwe’s electoral commission to reveal the truth more than two weeks after the ballot.

Observers say Mugabe has lost the vote but is deliberately delaying any announcement to give his supporters time to rig any new election decisively in his favour.

The commission, which had quickly published results for parliamentary and local elections held the same day, said it was delaying the release of the presidential results so it could verify the votes.

The court rejected the opposition demand and accepted the election commission’s explanation that it was investigating anomalies in some of the voting districts, calling it “legally valid” in its ruling. “It can therefore justify the delay.”

The commission “has not strayed from the law,” the ruling said.

MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said the party, which has refrained from holding major protests in recent weeks, would stage a nationwide “stay away” from work tomorrow.

Political rallies have been banned and the MDC has not called for street protests.

“It’s a very sad day in Zimbabwe,” MDC lawyer Andrew Makoni said. The court “has given the Zimbabwe electoral commission a blank check. We don’t know when the ZEC will be ready with results. We don’t know what specific time would be reasonable in the eyes of the court.”

Government spokesman Bright Matonga said the ruling was “the right judgment” because it allowed the electoral commission to complete a thorough review of results.

The commission’s offices have been shut since last week. The electoral commission has said vote processing was continuing at a separate location, but the opposition and local rights groups claim that ballots are not being processed.

“The verification, from what we understand, has not even begun,” Irene Petras, head of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, told reporters in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Petras said that if there is another counting centre, no one except the ruling party appears to have been let in.

“The political parties have been told they could not be part of the process,” she said.

Developments in Zimbabwe since the vote have prompted condemnation from Western governments and rights groups, who have documented a wave of politically motivated attacks as Mugabe’s allies appear to be using intimidation to ensure victory in an expected runoff.

Today the MDC said looting and arson attacks in north-east Mutton district have forced scores of villagers to flee their homes.

Armed assailants broke into the home of a woman who had worked as an MDC polling agent and attacked her with knives as they interrogated her.

Residents of the Rowan area east of Harare said ruling party militants attacked suspected opposition supporters last night in a street market and a bar. In northern Centenary, residents said at least 30 huts were torched.

Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said it has documented at least 130 attacks on opposition or independent poll monitors since the vote, most of them in the last few days. Two people have been killed and 29 were hospitalised with serious injuries, the group said.

But Zimbabwe’s neighbours have been largely silent. Regional leaders failed at a weekend summit in Zambia to demand the immediate release of results or to condemn Mugabe, as the opposition had hoped.

Instead, they said the results should be verified quickly and in the presence of the candidates or their agents “within the rule of law”.

The ruling party is also trying to overturn the results of parliamentary elections held alongside the presidential vote. Official results showed Mugabe’s party lost its majority in parliament for the first time in Zimbabwe’s history.

But electoral officials agreed to recount the results for 23 constituencies, all but one of them won by the opposition. If the re-count, set for Saturday, overturned just a few of those results, the ruling party would regain control of parliament.