Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF party on Friday night hailed a "landslide victory" in the country's election as tallies suggested it had won at least a two thirds majority in parliament - enough to change the country's constitution.
Patrick Chinamasa, the justice minister and a
member of Mr Mugabe's politburo, called for the West to lift sanctions
in the wake of the vote and said it was time for Zimbabwe to be welcomed
back into the international fold.
However
Morgan Tsvangirai's opposition party, the Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC), said it would refuse to accept the result, claiming it was
tainted by widespread electoral fraud and vote rigging.
By
late yesterday, Zimbabwe's Electoral Commission announced that Zanu PF
had already won 142 of 210 parliamentary seats, including in former
strongholds of Mr Tsvangirai's MDC like Masvingo and Manicaland.
Mr
Chinamasa said the party would now push forward plans to take majority
ownership of foreign companies in Zimbabwe. But he said that it also
wanted to re-engage with Western powers provided they changed "their
colonial mindset and accept us an equal, sovereign country".
"The
sanctions are illegal, unwarranted and should be lifted. They should
have been lifted yesterday," he told a news conference at Zanu PF's
towerblock headquarters in Harare. "I would expect that they will accept
that the people of Zimbabwe have spoken."
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He dismissed as "preposterous" claims that as many
as one million of the 3.95m people who Zanu PF say voted had been
disenfranchised by fraud, adding that Mr Tsvangirai was free to
challenge the result in court.
"When 3.95 million people go to vote in cold weather, by what standard are you calling it a sham and a farce?" he said.
"Try to be educated. One million people is the whole of Harare. He should start preparing his case to challenge the results. But the constitutional court's decision is final."
Zanu PF has predicted that it will win a two-thirds majority in parliament. It claims that Mr Mugabe has won as much as 75 per cent of the presidential vote and said he could be sworn in as early as next week.
Last night, the MDC's senior officials met to decide whether to take court action, send their supporters on to the streets or disband the party.
"We will not accept this result," Douglas Mwonzora, the party spokesman, said. "No one can believe this has happened. Our supporters are extremely upset, disappointed and angry. We are saying let's have another election, but this time something credible and fair."
Olesegun Obasanjo, the former Nigerian president and the African Union's chief observer, said yesterday that he had "grave concerns" about the voters' roll, extra ballot papers that were printed and the "high number" of people who were assisted to vote.
But he added that no election was "perfect", and said flaws in the process were most likely "honest mistakes".
"There are instances that could have been avoided and there are instances that even tended to breach the law but all in all, up to the close of the poll, we don't believe that these instances will amount to the result not representing the will of the people," he said.
The Southern African Development Community concurred, saying that the losing parties should accept the results, "however painful".
A senior western diplomat said he and colleagues believed there had been substantial vote rigging, but conceded that at this stage it could not be proved. "There is too much smoke and mirrors to prove anything. Yet."
Matthew Neuhaus, the Australian Ambassador, said the process was "fatally flawed" and there was no question of his country lifting its sanctions on Mr Mugabe and his inner circle.
"I believe there should be a complete re-run," he said. "I personally observed the misusing of ballot papers, of people who had always voted in the same place being turned away or told they were registered 200 miles away. I personally observe people being bussed in from other areas.
"There's no doubt about what has happened here."
He dismissed the suggestion that the scale of the Zanu PF win ruled out the possibility that vote rigging had altered the result.
"In a country where the voting population is six million, once you start getting into more than a million people disenfranchised, it's really significant," he said.
Mr Chinamasa said the election result showed voters were rejecting the MDC as an "imperialist creation".
"It was very clear that these elections were a crucial watershed," he said. "The country had to decide whether to move forward or back, to be swallowed in the beast of the Western countries or to remain outside the mouth of the beast. I think by all accords the people have spoken and are very clear about the direction in which this country should move."
(TeleGraph)
"When 3.95 million people go to vote in cold weather, by what standard are you calling it a sham and a farce?" he said.
"Try to be educated. One million people is the whole of Harare. He should start preparing his case to challenge the results. But the constitutional court's decision is final."
Zanu PF has predicted that it will win a two-thirds majority in parliament. It claims that Mr Mugabe has won as much as 75 per cent of the presidential vote and said he could be sworn in as early as next week.
Last night, the MDC's senior officials met to decide whether to take court action, send their supporters on to the streets or disband the party.
"We will not accept this result," Douglas Mwonzora, the party spokesman, said. "No one can believe this has happened. Our supporters are extremely upset, disappointed and angry. We are saying let's have another election, but this time something credible and fair."
Olesegun Obasanjo, the former Nigerian president and the African Union's chief observer, said yesterday that he had "grave concerns" about the voters' roll, extra ballot papers that were printed and the "high number" of people who were assisted to vote.
But he added that no election was "perfect", and said flaws in the process were most likely "honest mistakes".
"There are instances that could have been avoided and there are instances that even tended to breach the law but all in all, up to the close of the poll, we don't believe that these instances will amount to the result not representing the will of the people," he said.
The Southern African Development Community concurred, saying that the losing parties should accept the results, "however painful".
A senior western diplomat said he and colleagues believed there had been substantial vote rigging, but conceded that at this stage it could not be proved. "There is too much smoke and mirrors to prove anything. Yet."
Matthew Neuhaus, the Australian Ambassador, said the process was "fatally flawed" and there was no question of his country lifting its sanctions on Mr Mugabe and his inner circle.
"I believe there should be a complete re-run," he said. "I personally observed the misusing of ballot papers, of people who had always voted in the same place being turned away or told they were registered 200 miles away. I personally observe people being bussed in from other areas.
"There's no doubt about what has happened here."
He dismissed the suggestion that the scale of the Zanu PF win ruled out the possibility that vote rigging had altered the result.
"In a country where the voting population is six million, once you start getting into more than a million people disenfranchised, it's really significant," he said.
Mr Chinamasa said the election result showed voters were rejecting the MDC as an "imperialist creation".
"It was very clear that these elections were a crucial watershed," he said. "The country had to decide whether to move forward or back, to be swallowed in the beast of the Western countries or to remain outside the mouth of the beast. I think by all accords the people have spoken and are very clear about the direction in which this country should move."
(TeleGraph)
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