Polling update

Robert Mugabe is contesting the election alone after his greatest challenger Morgan Tsvangirai, a trade unionist, withdrew from the race last Monday because of violence that has killed almost 90 of his supporters so far.During the campaign, human rights workers, the MDC and the US State Department accused Mugabe’s government of sponsoring militants who have attacked MDC supporters and their offices.

Police broke up several opposition rallies and arrested dozens of Tsvangirai supporters in the run-up to the second round elections, impounding the MDC leader’s campaign buses, arresting him five times on the campaign trail, and denying him media space on the publicly-funded media.Civic groups, opposition supporters and witnesses said such violence and intimidation continued on the voting day, with militants forcing residents to attend a pungwe.

At Matapi Flats in Mbare, the Chipangano youth miltia was singing Zanu (PF) songs a stone’s throw from a  polling station, in contemptous violation of electoral laws that bar campaigning within a 100m radius of a polling station.In Budiriro, 12 people were waiting in a queue to vote in one of the lowest voter turnouts ever seen in Zimbabwe.At seven other polling stations visited by a news crew from The Zimbabwean, on average a paltry 18 people were at each polling station.The Zimbabwean could not independently verify reports that ballots arrived already marked in favour of Mugabe in Mbare.

But a youth militia in the area, named Chipangano, or ‘our agreement,’ had force-marched residents to go and vote for Mugabe.The youth militia had threatened to conduct a door-to-door check later to inspect the little finger for indelible ink.Those found without the red ink have been threatened with dire consequences.Mugabe and Tsvangirai are both appearing on the ballot papers despite the fact that Tsvangirai has officially withdrawn.

Fliers urging voters to boycott the poll were also strewn in the streets.Mugabe has rejected Tsvangirai’s withdrawal and insisted that he cannot legally boycott in what observers asserts was tacit confirmation that this was not an election but a legitimization process for the veteran ruler.

Mugabe, 84, has been in power since independence in 1980 and has only in recent years faced significant dissent as the economy has collapsed. He wants a fresh mandate to rule Zimbabwe until he is 89-years-old
The second election comes amid the country’s worst economic crisis since independence. Inflation is over 2 million percent, unemployment is 85 percent and hundreds of thousands of people are going hungry.
The polls are expected to close at 7pm and the results are expected Sunday.