The deployments coincided with a new set of results showing the ruling party surging marginally in the parliamentary results tally ahead of the main opposition on Tuesday. Only half of parliamentary election results had been released almost four days after polling.
The reinforcement of police and troop deployments sparked speculation that Mugabe was about to rig the election.
However, the official results from the National Collation Centre, trickling every three hours, showed a neck-and-neck performance between MDC and Zanu (PF) at the time going to Press.
But MDC secretary general Tendai Biti said information sourced from their party agents in polling stations showed that Mugabe was losing the race, with Tsvangirai taking a convincing 60 percent lead.
In the capital Harare, pro-Mugabe youths wearing white T-shirts emblazoned with the words ”Our land, our sovereignty,” took up positions in the centre of the beleaguered city, already heavily patrolled by armed police.
In poor townships outside Harare, known as opposition strongholds, the streets were patrolled by armoured police vehicles, some with guns mounted on top.
The Zimbabwean can reveal that on Sunday night, Mugabe held an emergency meeting with key members of his Joint Operations Command (JOC), a think tank of top security chiefs encompassing army, police and intelligence commanders.
Security sources said the meeting brainstormed on the devastating loss Mugabe had suffered and came up with four options. The first suggestion was to recognize the result, accept defeat and leave power in grace. This was dismissed outright, with a combative Mugabe reportedly charging that we have to defend the revolution.
Mugabe told his generals that there was no way he could accept defeat and said he had a duty to defend the country’s sovereignty, which he said was under threat from Britain and their opposition proxies.
There were also suggestions to annul the election through a military coup. This was also dismissed because of fears that it could provoke international condemnation and elicit foreign intervention.
The third suggestion was to nullify the results on the basis that the election could not be recognized because of a pending Supreme Court challenge filed by United People’s Party presidential candidate Dr Daniel Shumba.
The Zimbabwean can reveal that on Sunday senior generals contacted Shumba, a presidential candidate who has mounted a Supreme Court challenge seeking to compel the ZEC to accept his nomination papers, to sound him out on the plan, but he reportedly refused to co-operate ostensibly because he could not “sabotage” Tsvangirai’s electoral victory.
Shumba was said to have informed Tsvangirai about the plan amid reports they had ironed out a deal that he immediately withdraw his Supreme Court challenge so that it could not be used as a basis for nullifying the result.
After this plan was apparently foiled, The Zimbabwean heard that the JOC finally settled for a plan to use the ZEC to manipulate the election results through a taskforce of Central Intelligence Organsiation and electoral officials, which has been stationed at the 10th Floor of the NSSA Building. This taskforce was mandated to use a sophisticated rigging plan to inflate Zanu (PF) figures to ensure Mugabe clinches a 52 percent majority.
Security sources said Mugabe and the JOC decided to withhold the presidential election results and release the outcomes of the parliamentary, senate and local council polls in small batches to manage the volatile
situation and prepare the nation for a Mugabe victory.
They are pacifying the restive electorate by falsifying figures and issuing results in dribs and drabs to prepare the nation for a Mugabe victory, said respected lawyer, Arnold Tsunga, head of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights.
Meanwhile Zimbabweans have spent much of the last five days in a daze – hardly daring to celebrate an election that has turned their entire political establishment on its head.
However the MDC has already declared victory and MDC supporters have been witnessed dancing rebelliously in the capital. It remains unclear whether Tsvangirai, who has won the election but not power, will be allowed to take over.
His team is already under enormous public pressure to take power by whatever means necessary and immediately make good on its campaign promises, to root out corruption, and to brush away the last cobwebs of Zanu (PF)’s smug, monolithic rule.
Tsvangirai has our broken dreams in his back pocket, said university activist Shame Mhene. But even if Tsvangirai takes over power, there can be no quick fix for the poverty, neglect and decaying infrastructure which Mugabe has bequeathed the incoming government.
And the earlier elation by MDC supporters may quickly turn to frustration as Mugabe declares himself winner.
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