Zimbabwe State-Run Paper Predicts a Run-Off
By BARRY BEARAK
New York Times, April 3, 2008
HARARE, Zimbabwe -- The main opposition officially claimed victory Wednesday in the presidential election and urged President Robert G. Mugabe to concede, saying its tally showed the challenger Morgan Tsvangirai had won a slim majority. But the country’s state-run newspaper, in the first official acknowledgment that Mr. Mugabe had not won the election in the country he has led for 28 years, said no candidate received more than 50% and that it expected a runoff vote.
At a news conference, Tendai Biti, general secretary of the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, said his side won 50.3% of the presidential vote on Saturday. It said the final tally was totaled from votes posted at each polling station; party workers took photos of every result and computed the sum.
Four days after the election, the country’s election commission had still not released any of its own results from the presidential election. Mr. Biti urged the election commission to publish results swiftly. “There is a vacuum and in a vacuum all sorts of mischief fills in,” he said. The Herald newspaper, published by the government and considered a mouthpiece of Mr. Mugabe, published no actual election results from Saturday’s vote and attributed its conclusion of an expected runoff to analysts. But the newspaper report is likely to be perceived as a decision by Mr. Mugabe and his key aides to continue his fight to hold on to the presidency rather than yield it to the challenger, Mr. Tsvangirai, the MDC leader.
Mr. Biti said his party would contest a runoff—and win—if the results gave his party less than 50%, and the government organized a second round of voting. But he said his party would win the runoff and “humiliate” Mugabe. “We will accept with protests but it is only a delay of the inevitable,” he said.
Earlier this week, with unofficial results showing Mr. Mugabe behind, close advisers to the president were split about whether he should concede or force a second vote, according to a Western diplomat with knowledge of the talks. Members of Mr. Mugabe’s inner circle were said to be in talks with Mr. Tsvangirai. A Zimbabwean businessman with close links to the ruling party, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the nation’s military and intelligence chiefs discussed several options with the president after the vote appeared to go badly. These included the outright rigging of the election, going to a runoff and even the “elimination” of Mr. Tsvangirai. Mr. Mugabe was even willing to step down, the businessman said, but some of his advisers thought a runoff could be won if the government used every effort to get more votes from rural areas where the president has traditionally been strongest. By law, if no candidate gets more than 50% of the ballots, a second round of voting must take place within 21 days between the two top candidates. That interregnum, if it occurs, could allow the ruling party to use some of the same violent tactics it has used in the past against the opposition, tactics rarely employed in the most recent vote. On the other hand, the three-week campaign could allow for further talks that might pave the way for the 84-year-old president to make a graceful exit.
The only announcements the election commission has made in the last four days are about seats for Parliament. The Herald said that “the two parties were likely to win between 96 and 99 House of Assembly seats each.” There are 210 Parliament seats. This policy of the posting of results was negotiated between the parties this past year and was meant to prevent rigging. Mr. Tsvangirai has charged that the 2002 election was stolen from him, something that many independent observers agree with.
Based on more than half the votes it had counted, the MDC earlier this week claimed that it was ahead in the presidential race by a margin of 60% to 30%. A projection based on a random sample of polling stations by an independent civic group—the Zimbabwe Election Support network—predicted that Mr. Tsvangirai would get about 49.4% of the vote and Mr. Mugabe 41.8%.
The delay in publishing the results has brought international criticism. In Romania, where President Bush is attending a meeting of NATO leaders, a White House spokesman said Wednesday the administration supported calls for Mr. Mugabe to accept the results of the election, suggesting that he should step aside, though stopping on calling on him to do so. "It’s clear the people of Zimbabwe have voted for change," the spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, said.
A runoff would place the independent candidate Simba Makoni in a pivotal role. His vote was expected to be in the range of 8 to 10%. Mr. Makoni, the nation’s former finance minister, broke with the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, in order to run against his former boss. His criticisms of Mr. Mugabe grew increasingly harsh as the campaign went on.
According to a Western diplomat, Mr. Mugabe was at first reluctant to agree to a runoff. He is one of the world’s most enduring political leaders. He reportedly considered a runoff to be humiliation, the diplomat said. A resignation by Mr. Mugabe would have been a stunning turnabout in a country where he has been accused of consistently manipulating election results to maintain his 28-year lock on power.
Mr. Mugabe has not been seen in public since the election. Neither had Mr. Tsvangirai until Tuesday evening when he spoke to reporters and diplomats at a Harare hotel, sounding certain he had won the presidency and striving to seem presidential. “For years, we have traveled a journey of hunger, pain, torture and brutality,” he said. Today we face a new challenge of governing and rehabilitating our beloved country, the challenge of giving birth to a new Zimbabwe founded on restoration not retribution, on love not war.” [Tsvangirai] denied rampant reports that he or his advisers were in talks with the ruling party about a transition of power. He said he “would not enter into any deal” before the votes were officially announced.
Many Zimbabweans have known no other leader except Mr. Mugabe. He was a hero of the nation’s independence struggle against white minority rule, and he was hailed during his early years in power for policies of racial conciliation and the health and education advances he had brought to those denied them under colonial rule. But Mr. Mugabe has also been a ruthless autocrat who has unleashed campaigns of murder and terror against his opponents, analysts and critics contend. In 2000, he ordered the takeover of white-owned farms, a decision that cast Zimbabwe into an economic free fall that seems to have no end. Inflation now runs at 100,000%. About a quarter of the population has fled. Most of those remaining behind are unemployed. Zimbabwe is a paradigm of destitution. “People are dying for change,” said Mark Tichagarika, a driver in Harare. “Everyone is talking about the election, at work, in the bus queues, in the shops. When will we finally get a change?” He considered his own question. “Only the old man knows.”
It is unclear how Zimbabweans would react to news of a runoff, if that turns out to be the result of the official vote count. Certainly in Harare, where the president is unpopular, such news would seem the precursor to another stolen election. On Wednesday, parts of the capital were littered with white leaflets saying “Morgan Tsvangirai is our new president!! Freedom at last!” The leaflet said, “The thieves are working overtime to steal our votes,” adding “Stay on the streets and get ready for JAMBANJA,” the Shona word for violence.
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