Zims fed up with ZEC delays.

 

Elections results have been coming in drips and drabs, days after voting ended and residents are worried the balancing act being applied by Justice Lawrence Sekeremayi, the Chief Elections Officer, in announcing the results is part of the rigging process.

 

By lunchtime on Tuesday, the ZEC had announced results of a total of 130 House of Assembly constituencies with Zanu PF leading with 63 seats, the MDC Morgan Tsvangirai faction closely following with 62 seats, and with MDC pro-Senate faction with a mere five seats from the collated results since verification and counting started on Saturday evening.

 

And, foreign observers too have raised an uproar at the ZEC for delays in announcing the results saying that they were “flabbergasted” why it took too long for the ZEC to release results that were now public knowledge.

 

President Mugabe and his political party were reportedly taken to the cleaners by the Morgan Tsvangirai led MDC faction which is said to have won the presidential and other three elections by landslide proportions.

 

But desperate to win his sixth term in office, President Mugabe and the ZEC are said to be manipulating the elections results hopefully to push for a second round run-off, which Zanu PF will massively rig without restraint.

 

“They are cooking up the election result,” screamed Ike Whittaker in an interview with CAJ News, just shortly after lunchtime.

 

“How else does one explain the balancing act that is being applied? They have cooked up the parliamentary election result to take a semblance of a tie between Tsvangirai and Mugabe to justify rigging the presidential vote,” he said.

 

Whittaker, a Bulawayo businessman said Mugabe and ZEC wanted to soften public anger when the rigged presidential election result is finally announced.

 

He said the ZEC wanted people to believe that there was a tie between the incumbent and Tsvangirai.

In announcing the results, the ZEC has been releasing one win for Zanu PF and one win for MDC (Tsvangirai) as if the two political parties were in an endless penalty shootout contest in a drawn soccer match.

 

Residents had a lot of questions to the ZEC; “If voting ended on Saturday evening, and verification and counting started thereafter, why then delay in announcing the results that are posted outside every polling station and every command centre,” mused Mqondisi Ncube, a commuter omnibus operator.

 

“Clearly there is no logical explanation as to why the ZEC is holding on to the results other than that it wants to help Mugabe steal the election,” he said.

 

Another resident, Graham Rossenfels, said it was clear from the outset that Zanu PF and President Mugabe wanted to rig the elections.

 

“Do you honestly think he was going to hand over the presidency to Tsvangirai on a silver platter like that? No ways. Mugabe does not want to go anywhere and he and the ZEC are fixing the election results to ensure he remains in power until 1013,” Rossenfels said.

 

A local political analyst said there now was clear evidence that the ZEC was “playing around” with the results to reduce the MDC Tsvangirai faction’s lead in the elections. He said this was being done to guarantee a re-run, which, like Whittaker said, the ruling party will massively rig without restraint.

 

According to MDC officials who declined to be named for fear of reprisals, the MDC had won over 90 House of Assembly seats and was guaranteed more seats from the remaining 14 Midlands constituencies’ results that are yet to be announced.

 

The officials said Zanu PF and the ZEC wanted to drastically reduce the MDC’s lead every which way to justify a second round run off.

 

The delays in announcing the results have clearly dampened Tsvangirai’s supporters’ celebratory mood reducing their broad smiles to scowls yet they had put the Champaign on ice–CAJ News.