Zimbabwe Opposition Says It Has Beaten Mugabe

A crowd celebrating in Harare, Zimbabwe, on Sunday after unofficial results suggested a landslide victory by the opposition. (Alexander Joe/Agence France-Presse)

HARARE, Zimbabwe: Mar. 31st. (NY Times) — Zimbabwe’s main opposition party said Sunday that it had won a landslide victory, insisting that unofficial election results showed that the Movement for Democratic Change had unseated President Robert Mugabe, the man who has led this nation for 28 years. Those results had been compiled by adding the vote counts posted at thousands of individual polling stations, and were not formally released by the government. Indeed, the nation’s chief election officer warned that the opposition’s boasts were premature and asked people to wait for official totals. People did just that, anxiously watching the government television station on Sunday for announcements about the election the day before. But instead of news they were shown irrelevant fare like a program about biodegradable Chinese plastic and a documentary about the Netherlands’ 1974 soccer team. Near midnight, the election commissioner, George Chiweshe, finally announced that the official results would begin coming out at 6 a.m. Monday. At the appointed hour no results were forthcoming. “It is of absolute necessity that at each stage the result be meticulously analyzed, witnessed and confirmed,” he said. Soon after the designated time, an election official began laboriously reading results, but only of six parliamentary races.

In the meantime, Zimbabwe’s future has seemed to rest in a state of suspended animation, with people awaiting the first official results, wondering if the numbers were being carefully tabulated or craftily concocted. “We’ve won this election,” declared Tendai Biti, the M.D.C.’s general secretary, in something like a pre-emptive strike. “The trend is irreversible.” “The results coming in show that in our traditional strongholds, we are massacring them,” he said. “In Mugabe’s traditional strongholds, they are doing very badly. There is no way Mugabe can claim victory except through fraud. He has lost this election.” If Mr. Mugabe, 84, is defeated, it may mean a new chance for a once prosperous country that now has one of the world’s sorriest economies. It would surely be a signal event for Africa itself, with another of its enduring autocrats beaten against long odds by the will of the electorate. The M.D.C.’s presidential candidate is Morgan Tsvangirai, a former labor leader. In 2002, the early count also showed him well ahead of Mr. Mugabe. Then the broadcast of results suddenly stopped. When they resumed, hours later, the president had thundered ahead based on late returns. Outcries about fraud were among the reasons for rule changes this time. It was agreed that results would be counted at each polling station and then publicly posted to prevent any trickery with the numbers.

Late Saturday, many of those posted numbers began traveling across the country as text messages on cellphones, passed along not just between party activists but between journalists and independent election watchdogs. “It’s a tsunami for M.D.C.,” was a phrase frequently repeated. The party had not only swept most of the big cities like Harare and Bulawayo, where it was previously strong, the opposition said, but it had also won in Masvingo and Bindura and dozens of places it had never won before. Seven of Mr. Mugabe’s cabinet members were defeated in races for Parliament, according to reports phoned in by journalists. It appeared that Mr. Mugabe was being thoroughly repudiated.

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network, an independent civic group, employed an elaborate plan to gather the posted returns. By Sunday afternoon, Noel Kututwa, its chief, said the organization had collected 88 percent of the urban vote and 40 percent of the rural vote. He criticized the government for not releasing the totals sooner. “The delay in announcing the votes has fueled the speculation that something is going on,” he said. Mr. Kututwa refused to say which candidate was winning in the results he had in hand. But another independent observer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Mr. Mugabe was well behind with 37 percent of the vote compared with 58 percent for Mr. Tsvangirai and 5 percent for the independent candidate Simba Makoni. Still, even by the support network’s math, there were a lot of polling stations whose vote totals were unknown, including many in the rural areas of Mashonaland where the president has always reaped sizable margins. Even while declaring victory, Mr. Biti of the M.D.C. worried aloud about a reversal of fortune. “In some areas where we thought the results were final, some ballot boxes are actually missing,” he said.

There were other worrisome signs. Prior to the election, Zimbabwe’s security chiefs each said they would support no one but Mr. Mugabe, a hero of the country’s struggle against colonialism. In a joint announcement, they also warned opposition candidates from making victory proclamations based on unofficial totals and “thereby fomenting disorder and mayhem.” Helmeted riot police patrolled many of Harare’s streets late Sunday. Come Monday, the followers of one candidate or the other were expected to feel deeply aggrieved. President Mugabe has cast the opposition as puppets of Zimbabwe’s colonial masters, the British. If he loses, some will feel their national sovereignty has been put at risk. On the other hand, if Mr. Mugabe wins, the M.D.C. will undoubtedly allege that the vote was stolen. Mr. Mugabe has presided over an economic freefall that began in 2000 when the government seized agricultural land owned by whites. About a quarter of Zimbabwe’s 13 million people have fled the country; 80 percent to 90 percent of those left are unemployed. The inflation rate is more than 100,000 percent. But Mr. Mugabe’s government controls the news media here and has doled out food and other favors that critics see as attempts to buy votes. And the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, a body dominated by Mr. Mugabe’s appointees, has been commonly accused by the M.D.C. of rigging elections.

Still, there was hope here that this election might be more transparent than the last. Last March, Mr. Tsvangirai was badly beaten by the police at a prayer rally, but he has campaigned largely without interference, speaking to huge crowds. The posting of results by precinct has contributed to the optimism. “The key has always been to get the results posted at the polling stations,” said Mike Davies, a longtime community activist with the Combined Harare Residents Association. “If the results are posted, it becomes so much harder for Mugabe to cheat.” But he too was cautious. “It’s hard for me to believe that Mugabe will go peacefully,” he said. “When autocrats fall, that’s the most dangerous time.”
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