Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Harae (Agenzia Fides) - While the counting of votes continues, the opposition claims to have won the general elections that took place on Saturday, March 29 (see Fides 28/3/2008). In addition, they affirm that their presidential candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, has won double the number of votes received by the President Robert Mugabe.
According to the Secretary General for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), in their own tally of votes, in 128 of the 210 parliamentary seats they showed that their leader Tsvangirai had secured 60 percent of votes against 30 for Mugabe in the presidential race. The MDC said their tally showed they had won 96 parliamentary constituencies out of 128.
However, these results are still awaiting confirmation from the national electoral commission that until now has only published official results for 24 seats, with the tied score of 12 for the opposition and 12 for the Presidential party (Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front, ZANU-PF).
The stalling in manifestation of the results has caused the European Commision to issue a statement asking that they speed-up operations in counting the votes, in order to “avoid unnecessary suspitions,” as the statement from John Clancy, spokesman for the Development Commissioner Louis Michel, said.
Prior to elections, the opposition and various international observers had denounced election fraud and violence. However, a preliminary report issued by observers in union with the Development Community of Southern Africa says that the process has been justly carried out. On the other hand, representatives from South Africa have refused to sign the statement precisely because they are suspicious of the long wait in revealing election results. (LM) (Agenzia Fides 31/3/2008; righe 24, parole 269)
