Zimbabwe Poll:89-year, Mugabe Claims Victory

A senior Zanu-PF source has claimed a resounding victory for Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe’s presidential and parliamentary elections.

The unnamed party official told Reuters news agency: “We’ve taken this election. We’ve buried the MDC. We never had any doubt that we were going to win.”

The opposition, Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), immediately claimed the elections had been “a monumental fraud” and said it would be holding an emergency meeting later.

“It’s a monumental fraud. Zimbabweans have been taken for a ride by Zanu-PF and Mugabe, we do not accept it,” a senior source told Reuters.

Releasing results early is illegal, and the police had warned they would arrest anybody making premature claims before the official five days the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission had said it could take to announce the result.

The independent Zimbabwe Election Support Network said police had announced it would be an offence to communicate individual polling station results either by text or the internet.

The claim of victory was made as polling stations closed and counting got under way.

To win an outright victory, one of the candidates has to secure more than 50% of the vote.

Turnout in the election was high, particularly in urban areas where the polling stations stayed open late into the evening to allow everyone in the queues to cast their votes.

The presidential contest pit the 89-year-old incumbent Mr Mugabe against his main rival Mr Tsvangirai, whose supporters believed a big turnout would favour, blunting the impact of any manipulation of the vote.

Zimbabweans voted in large numbers despite concerns about the credibility of the electoral process, and the vote was relatively peaceful compared to disputed and violent polls in 2008.

The fiercely contested election was dogged by claims of intimidation and vote-rigging.

However, Olusegun Obasanjo, the head of the African Union monitoring team, said initial reports indicated “a peaceful, orderly and free and fair vote”.

Polling officials and party agents brought blankets to polling stations so that they could sleep next to the polling boxes to make sure they were not tampered with.

Despite claims of voters being turned away at polling stations and alleged irregularities across several districts, including changes to voters’ lists and ballot papers, Mr Tsvangirai’s supporters remained “confident”.

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