Official results have not yet been released in the presidential election, but the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said it would begin verifying and collating results from a partial recount of the votes today.(Monday) The ZEC says the candidates or their representatives will have a chance to examine the tallies before the results are released.
Judge George Chiweshe, head of the electoral commission, said election authorities had agreed that each party would collate its own figures during the final verification. This could create a further delay.
Among opposition supporters, there was little appetite for celebration of this news and of the recount results on Sunday as reports mounted of increasing violence and intimidation.
Meanwhile, the South African Communist Party (SACP) called on Mugabe to step down as president and, if regional leaders fail to intervene within days to resolve the dangerous impasse in Zimbabwe, for the UN to do so.
The SACP’s politburo said Mugabe and his ruling clique should accept defeat.
It called on the governments of the Southern African Development Community and particularly President Thabo Mbeki, as leader of the region’s mediation attempt, to take some responsibility for the deepening crisis.
President Mbeki, in particular, stubbornly refused to learn anything from the previous electoral events in Zimbabwe, said the SACP, an alliance partner of the ANC.
This time around, once more (the) SADC allowed Mugabe to run circles around it. This denialist complacency once more raised false hopes and once more exposed millions of ordinary Zimbabweans to the wrath of Mugabe’s police state.
The SACP also denounced the state-sponsored violence and harassment of opposition supporters in Zimbabwe.
It said it was time for maximum isolation of the Mugabe regime and it saluted Cosatu for calling on union members to refuse to offload and transport the Chinese arms ordered by Zimbabwe and shipped to South African waters by a Chinese vessel earlier this month.
The US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, who is touring the region to press leaders to take a tougher stance against Mugabe, also called for international intervention. When a government deploys its military – and its police and its intelligence operatives, as well as mobilising youth militia – then the international community has a responsibility to step in and try to stop that government from beating its own population.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, expressed concern about an emerging pattern of political violence directed at opposition supporters, election monitors and human rights activists.
If tolerance and respect for human rights continue their steep decline, the consequences will be grave for all Zimbabweans and lead to further problems for neighbouring states, Arbour said in a statement released in Geneva.
Political tension has mounted since security forces raided the offices of the opposition and independent observers on Friday, seizing material relating to the vote count.
Police confirmed they had arrested 215 people in a raid on opposition headquarters in Harare. They also said they searched the offices of the independent Zimbabwe Election Support Network for evidence that the organisation bribed state election officials to rig polling results.
The opposition said those arrested had fled attacks by ruling party loyalists in the countryside and had sought refuge in Harare.
Human rights lawyer Alec Muchadehama said 24 children and infants were among the detained and there were reports of widespread beatings at police stations.
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