Zim: Rural votes will clinch it
2005-04-01 11:07
People stand in line as they wait to vote in parliamentary elections in the town of Tsholotsho, Zimbabwe. (Schalk van Zuydam, AP)
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Four Chinese men face deportation from Zimbabwe after they were arrested for killing more than 40 tortoises for meat, a report says.
A dusty road leads to the village of Wedza, where veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war eke out a meagre living on their farm cooperative, which after a promising start now brings only despair.
Harare - Zimbabwe's opposition on Friday made a strong early showing in elections, winning victory in key cities, but the rural vote was expected to be decisive in the bid to unseat President Robert Mugabe's ruling party and end its 25-year monopoly on power.
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by former union leader Morgan Tsvangirai won 31 out of 120 contested seats for parliament, taking Harare and Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo much as it did in the 2000 elections, results from the electoral commission showed.
Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) won three seats in rural areas where it is traditionally popular and one in Harare, chief elections officer Lovemore Sekeramai said.
Turnout was on average below 50% during the 12 hours of voting on Thursday that were peaceful, in marked contrast with the previous elections in 2000 and 2002 when scores were killed and beaten in political violence.
Rural areas are key
The victories by the opposition in the cities came as no surprise and the test for Mugabe was to come from the rural areas where his party carried the vote in the last elections and where Tsvangirai was able to hold rallies during the latest campaign.
No major incidents of violence were reported during voting that elections commission chairman George Chiveshe said took place "in a peaceful, and in some instances joyful atmosphere."
The elections were closely watched to gauge whether Mugabe would live up to his commitment to hold a free and fair vote, in accordance with guidelines for democratic polls agreed last year by regional leaders.
Mugabe, in power since Zimbabwe's independence in 1980, dismissed opposition concerns of election fraud as "nonsense" after he cast his ballot, adding that he was "absolutely confident" of winning a two-thirds majority for his Zanu-PF.
"Everybody is seeing that these are free and fair elections," said Mugabe, who turned up at a polling station at a Highfield township community hall in Harare accompanied by his wife Grace and young son Chatunga.
But Tsvangirai dismissed the vote as unfair even though he also predicted victory for his party, created in 1999 as a labour-based movement.
"This is not going to be a free and fair election," said Tsvangirai.
Whatever the outcome, Zimbabweans have been relieved that the elections were free of the bloodshed that marred polls in 2000 and 2002 that left some 100 dead and many more beaten, mostly opposition supporters who were attacked by Zanu-PF youth militias.
- AFP