He declared that his party’s announcement of the results would be based on the figures that would have been displayed at polling centres around the country, saying they would allow Zanu (PF) to tamper with the election outcome.
“There is no law which forbids MDC-T from announcing election results as reflected by ZEC outside polling stations,” said Biti.
His statement followed threats by President Robert Mugabe at a Zanu (PF) rally held at the National Sports Stadium last Sunday that, MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai would be arrested if he announced the results ahead of the electoral commission.
“We will arrest him,” Mugabe told party supporters at the rally.
Biti said gone were the days when dictators would manipulate election outcomes and privatise democracy.
“We know MDC-T will win both the presidential and parliamentary elections with more than 78 percent. Anything short of victory for us will be a product of rigging and will be resisted,” said Biti.
He said his party made a mistake in June 2008, by accepting to go for the presidential election re-run without knowledge of true results of the first run.
Biti said MDC-T briefed SADC, AU and other observers about the omissions and illegalities surrounding the Zimbabwe electoral process, among them the non availability of the final copy of the voters’ roll, failure by ZEC to give details regarding the total number of polling stations, unexplained cutting down of some urban polling centres and the failure by the commission to furnish political parties with details on how many ballot papers were being printed by who and where.
According to Biti, polling centres in Harare were reduced from the 920 used in 2008 to 875.
He said MDC-T was wondering why Fidelity and Printflow printers were printing other sections of ballot papers, while serial numbers were printed at the police printing press.
Biti said the final copy of the voters’ roll was yet to be made public, because some clandestine voters’ registration was in progress in some parts of the country.
Post published in: News