Friday, June 27, 2008

Voters led to polls in Zimbabwe 1-candidate runoff

Voters led to polls in Zimbabwe 1-candidate runoff

By ANGUS SHAW, Associated Press Writer 29 minutes ago

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Marshals led voters to polling stations and bands of government supporters harassed people in the street Friday as Zimbabwe held an internationally discredited, one-candidate presidential runoff marked by intimidation.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who withdrew from the runoff citing a campaign of state-sponsored violence, said the results of the election would "reflect only the fear of the people of Zimbabwe."

Dozens of opposition supporters have been killed and thousands of people injured prior to Friday's vote.

In contrast to the excitement and hope for change that marked the first round of voting in March, this time a defiant President Robert Mugabe is the only candidate. The election is expected only to deepen the nation's political and economic crisis.

"The whole election is a farce," opposition party treasurer Roy Bennett told Associated Press Television News from exile in neighboring South Africa.

Tsvangirai's name remained on the ballot because electoral officials say his withdrawal Sunday came too late.

Mugabe supporters appeared to be using intimidation to orchestrate a massive turnout in hopes of making his inevitable victory appear credible.

About 20 paramilitary police in riot gear deployed in a central Harare park Friday, then began patrolling the city in a truck. Militant Mugabe supporters roamed the streets, singing revolutionary songs, heckling people and asking why they were not voting.

"I've got no option but to go and vote so that I can be safe," explained a young woman selling tomatoes.

Mugabe appeared jovial as he voted Friday in Harare. When a reporter asked how the 84-year-old president was feeling, he replied "very fit, very optimistic, upbeat and hungry."

Turnout appeared to vary widely. In the capital's densely populated Mbare suburb, lines built up at polling stations as voters arrived in groups, led by apparent party marshals carrying books filled with names. In one side street, names were being called and ticked off as people headed into a polling station.

Up to 300 people waited at one station in Mbare. But elsewhere, the two or three voters were outnumbered by an intimidating police presence.

"The people are reluctant to talk," Pan African Parliament spokesman Khalid A. Dahab told The Associated Press. "Some of them are saying 'We were told to come here.' It's just not normal. There's a lot of tension."

State radio acknowledged that voters were only "trickling" into stations in the countryside, attributing the low turnout to chilly weather. And in Highfield, a densely populated Harare suburb, fewer than a dozen voters waited outside polling stations where hundreds had lined up for the first round.

Assistant Police Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena told state radio that the number of police at polling stations had been doubled to "guarantee peace and security." He had no reports of violence by midmorning, but said any violence would be met with "the full force of the law."

In an e-mail voting day message, Tsvangirai said he expected voters to be threatened, to be told to record their ballot numbers and to be filmed as they voted. He advised them not to resist.

"God knows what is in your heart. Don't risk your lives," the opposition leader wrote from the Dutch Embassy, where he has sought refuge.

In middle-class Greendale suburb, Eunice Maboreke came out of a polling station but would not reveal her choice.

"My vote is my secret," she told a reporter.

One resident, Livingstone Gwaze, said he voted for Mugabe.

"Things will get better. There is darkness before light," he said.

Another man refused to give his name but held up his ink-stained finger to show he had voted.

Kubatana, a Web site forum for independent Zimbabwean human rights groups, said Mugabe supporters were manning illegal roadblocks Friday on main streets and highways where police were not present. The move aimed to crush any attempted election boycott and to stage-manage a high election turnout.

Riot police and regular officers kept up their roadblocks on approaches to the South African Embassy in Harare, apparently to keep any more opposition members from fleeing there to escape election-related violence. At least 200 people were already at the embassy, many camping with blankets and bundles of belongings in the embassy parking lot.

World leaders have dismissed the runoff as a sham. Nigeria became the latest African nation to call for its postponement. Italy said Friday it will urge the European Union to withdraw its ambassadors from Zimbabwe.

"Today's election is a sham, the election is hollow and its result will be equally hollow and meaningless," EU spokeswoman Krisztina Nagy said in Brussels, Belgium.

Tsvangirai was first in a field of four in the March vote, an embarrassment to Mugabe. But the official tally said he did not gain the votes necessary to avoid a runoff against Mugabe. Tsvangirai's party and its allies also won control of parliament in March, dislodging Mugabe's party for the first time since independence in 1980.

Mugabe was once hailed as a post-independence leader committed to development and reconciliation. But in recent years, he has been accused of ruining the economy and holding onto power through fraud and intimidation.

The official inflation rate was put at 165,000 percent by the government in February, but independent estimates put the real figure closer to 4 million percent.

Since the first round of national elections, shortages of basic goods have worsened, public services have come to virtual standstill, and power and water outages have continued daily.

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