"These were the most free and fair election in the world"

[Frozzy]

Mugabe's party sweeps to victory
President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party has swept to victory in Zimbabwe's parliamentary elections.

So far the party has taken 69 of 120 contested seats, official results show - enough to guarantee Mr Mugabe's party control of the legislature.

The opposition, which has 35 seats so far, said "disgusting, massive fraud" had been committed in Thursday's polls.

Jonathan Moyo, recently sacked as information minister, won a surprise seat as an independent.

Mr Moyo, the architect of Zimbabwe's tough media laws who fell out with the president over the appointment of the country's first woman vice-president, took the Tsholotsho constituency from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

As expected, the MDC won most of the urban constituencies in the 150-seat parliament, where 30 MPs are appointed by the president.

Mr Mugabe is now just one seat short of a two-thirds majority needed to change the constitution, to enable him to install a successor without immediately calling elections, as presently required.

'Over the moon'

The BBC's Themba Nkosi says Zanu-PF supporters have taken to the streets in celebration in northern parts of the country, but the atmosphere is more muted in the second city of Bulawayo where the MDC draws its support.


PARTIAL RESULTS
MDC: 35 seats
Zanu-PF: 69 seats
Yet to be declared: 15 seats
Elected seats: 120 seats
Seats appointed by the president: 30
Surprise winner
Independent Jonathan Moyo, ex-information minister
Surprise loser
Zanu-PF Emmerson Mnangagwa, parliament speaker

Security is tight, with police patrolling the streets warning the winners not to provoke those who lost, he says.

Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme that he was "over the moon" about his party's victory.

All Zanu-PF's hard work had paid off and the result was a vindication of the party's good policies, he said.

He rejected claims by the UK, the US and Germany that the election was "flawed".

"These were the most free and fair elections in the world," he said.

'Ghost voters'

Mr Tsvangirai accused the ruling party of stealing the election.

"We are deeply disturbed by the fraudulent activities we have unearthed," he said.

These were the most free and fair election in the world
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa

"We believe the people of Zimbabwe must defend their votes, their right to a free and a fair election - this is what has been denied," he said.

President Mugabe, who has been in power for 25 years, dismissed opposition complaints as nonsense.

Average turnout was below 50%, chief elections officer Lovemore Sekeramai said while local election observers describing the process as smooth.

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network, which had some 6,000 observers in the 8,000 polling stations, says that some 10% of would-be voters were turned away, either because their names were not on the electoral roll, they did not have the right identity papers, or they were in the wrong constituency.

One man told the BBC News website that his name had been taken off the register since the last election and yet the name of his aunt was still there, although she had died six years ago.

Human rights groups say that hundreds of thousands of "ghost voters" appear on the electoral roll of 5.8 million people. They fear these entries could be used to record fraudulent votes.

Our correspondent says MDC officials were visibly shocked when the Harare South seat went to Zanu-PF, leaving them to question the voters' register and the re-drawing of constituency boundaries.

Other key results:

* Parliament speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa, once tipped to succeed Mr Mugabe, lost in the central Kwekwe constituency.
* MDC candidate Heather Bennett, wife of jailed MP Roy Bennett, lost his Chimanimani seat.

So... why the pressure on Ukraine over fradulent elections, and why the invasion of Serbia over Human Rights abuses, and why have the American Civil War over slavery and racism, when you can have all three in one country!

[Dinner]

But its in Africa so no body cares and everyone expects this sort of trash.

[molly bloom]

Re: "These were the most free and fair election in the world"

Originally posted by Kalius


So... why the pressure on Ukraine over fradulent elections, and why the invasion of Serbia over Human Rights abuses, and why have the American Civil War over slavery and racism, when you can have all three in one country!

Let's not forget the excluded Zimbabweans too:

" A political system is perhaps better judged by who and how it excludes rather than the ideas it professes to uphold.

While much attention was focused on who got to observe Zimbabwe's parliamentary elections today, and who was denied, a further problem has become evident - which Zimbabweans get to vote and which have been excluded.

Zimbabwe's population is estimated at 12 million. If all adult voters could register and vote, there would be approximately six million ballots.

The current voters' roll confirms this, with 5.6 million voters registered.

Yet despite this match of overall numbers, concerns have been raised about the roll's accuracy, given the many deceased people still registered and the continual discovery of ghost voters on the roll. Estimates suggest the number of dead voters registered runs into hundreds of thousands.

Also included on the current voters' roll are many of the over 1.5 million Zimbabweans living in the diaspora.

These Zimbabweans have learned that they no longer have the right to vote. The current system is designed to allow Zimbabweans to vote only in their constituency of original registration - that is, a specific suburb or region of Zimbabwe.

South Africa's major cities have become home-in-exile to countless Zimbabweans. Others have made their way elsewhere in the region or even overseas, having fled economic hardship or political persecution.

Many Zimbabweans living in Zimbabwe have also found themselves deprived of the right to vote in these elections. Hundreds of thousands of "invisible" and "forgotten" Zimbabweans inside the country have been disenfranchised by the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2001, which denies citizenship to anyone whose parents were born outside of Zimbabwe unless he/she renounces a claim to a second citizenship.

This requires those seeking to retain or acquire Zimbabwe citizenship, and who have a second citizenship, to provide documentary proof to the
registrar-general that they have legally renounced that foreign citizenship. "

Cape Times, courtesy of

http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/