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Chicago Tribune
By Paul Salopek | Chicago Tribune correspondent
June 29, 2008

To a nation living on its knees, violence-plagued polls seem a death knell

JOHANNESBURG — Zimbabwe’s shattered opposition released its roll call of dead last week.

The list, e-mailed to the international media, was clearly prepared in haste. It contains the kind of typographical errors that arise, one imagines, from taking fast dictation. The language is as flat and terse as a small-town police report. Still, for the first time, people who died in Zimbabwe’s recent political agonies now have the dignity of being named.

The chilling details of these largely invisible murders—in which all but four of the 85 victims were members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, while most of the accused killers belong to President Robert Mugabe’s youth militias—are as good an elegy as any for the death of a democracy.

But the brief recountings of other political killings—a man assaulted while sitting down to dinner, others attacked while tending their shop, working in a flour mill, or puttering in a garden—hint at the strangely workaday, domestic quality of life in Zimbabwe even as it morphs into what now more than ever resembles a bald-faced dictatorship.

The final blow to democratic hopes came Friday, when a widely condemned runoff election promised to reinstall Mugabe in power. Diplomats now predict that up to a million new refugees, hungry and desperate, may flood out of the free-falling wreck called Zimbabwe in the coming year. On the death list are some who won’t get that chance.

Nobody knows what will happen next in moribund Zimbabwe.

Financial Times
By Tony Hawkins in Harare and Tom Burgis in Johannesburg
June 28 2008

Voters in Zimbabwe’s main cities boycotted yesterday’s presidential polls in defiance of the threat of reprisals against anyone not voting for the only candidate: Robert Mugabe.

“None of us are bothering to vote,” said Angela, a young hairdresser. “I don’t know anyone who is.”

Marwick Khumalo, head of the Pan-African Parliament observer mission, said queues at polling stations in Harare - the capital and an MDC stronghold - were much smaller than they were for the first-round March election. Then the autocratic Mr Mugabe was beaten into second place by Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

“The turnout is very, very low,” Mr Khumalo said. “We have not yet seen the ingredients necessary to make the poll free and fair.”

David Coltart, an MDC senator in Bulawayo, another MDC stronghold, said that all but two of the 15 polling stations he had visited were deserted.

It was a different story in some of Harare’s densely populated townships - which have been targeted by militias loyal to Mr Mugabe’s Zanu-PF - where there were long queues of people waiting to vote by mid-morning. State radio reported that at one rural polling station crowds of people “could not wait” to endorse Mr Mugabe.

Independent information from rural areas, which include Zanu-PF’s heartlands, was scarce because of poor communications and an absence of observers.

“Lots of people were planning to boycott the elections, or to spoil their ballots or vote for Tsvangirai,” said a diplomatic source from Har-are. “But we also hear that the military will be frogmarching people to go to vote.”

The Zimbabwean
Thursday, 26 June 2008

The ruling party in Zimbabwe has a detailed plan to murder opposition polling agents, bomb polling stations and march the electorate to the ballot box under armed guard to ensure an emphatic victory for Robert Mugabe in tomorrow’s uncontested presidential run-off.

Minutes of a meeting of the regime’s top security officials, the Joint Operations Command (JOC), seen by The Independent, outline the ruthless strategy which appears to be going ahead regardless of the withdrawal of the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai from the race.

The notes, leaked from a JOC meeting late last week, include instructions to kill opposition MPs, for death squads to stuff ballot boxes in rural areas and the prevention of any rallies by the opposition. Detailed instructions were included on how to rig the vote: “Voters in a ward should surrender their IDs to the village head, and have their names taken down. On the day of voting, the respective village heads should queue outside the polling station with each member [voter] with a respective number. Each voter shall profess ignorance of the ability to write on his/her own… agents in the polling stations will be helping in marking X.”
Many opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) MPs have been forced into hiding and several more were seeking to cross the border last night after learning of execution orders given to death squads.

“War veterans have been instructed to kill all the MDC mps [sic] working in cahoots with the Army and the CIO [Central Intelligence Organisation],” the minutes recorded. “Every mp [sic] shall not tread the ground or the soils of his constituency.”
The MDC’s decision to boycott the presidential run-off in the hope of exposing the election-rigging and calming the terror campaign appears to have been ignored, raising fears that the violence unleashed to keep the present regime in office is out of control.

New York Review of Books
Volume 55, Number 11 • June 26, 2008
By Joshua Hammer

1.
On a clear spring afternoon in Harare in mid-May, South Africa’s president, Thabo Mbeki, paid a call on Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s beleaguered dictator, six weeks after Zimbabwe’s tumultuous elections on March 29 in which opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai claimed a clear victory over Mugabe. Mbeki had been largely silent as Zimbabwe descended into chaos. In mid-April, while Mugabe’s handpicked Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) refused to release the final vote count, and Mugabe’s War Veterans marched through the streets in an intimidating display of force, Mbeki had stood hand in hand with Mugabe outside the presidential residence in Harare and denied that the country was in “crisis.”

In recent days, however, as evidence grew of widespread beatings and killings of supporters of Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Mbeki had found himself under attack in the press and at odds with members of his own party leadership. Jacob Zuma, the chairman of the African National Congress and Mbeki’s likely successor to the presidency of South Africa, had criticized the delayed vote count and said that an April raid on MDC headquarters made the country look like “a police state.” The Johannesburg newspaper Business Day revealed that Mbeki had several years earlier ignored a report by two South African judges describing widespread cheating by Mugabe’s ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU- PF), in the 2002 parliamentary election. Now, with the electoral commission’s official results showing that Tsvangirai had defeated Mugabe by 47.9 percent to 42.3 percent—necessitating a runoff election—Mbeki faced mounting pressure to support a free and fair second round.

Kenyannewswebsite.wordpress.com
By Tom Burgis in Johannesburg
June 25 2008

For the huddled congregation at the Central Methodist Mission in downtown Johannesburg, the wait for a saviour goes on.
Many of the more than 2,000 Zimbabweans who have sought sanctuary at the church in the South African capital are coming to terms with the fact that Morgan Tsvangirai will not contest Friday’s presidential run-off election against Robert Mugabe.

Reflecting some of the initial anger Godfrey Charamba, the chairman of the refugees sitting beneath an enormous crucifix in the main hall had said on Sunday, hours after Mr Tsvangirai’s decision: “He is letting down the hope of the people.”

The exiles’ initial outrage gives way to more sober sentiments closer to the epicentre of the violence. Bella Matambanadzo, head of George Soros’ Open Society Initiative’s Zimbabwe programme, said on Tuesday that in Harare “there is a feeling that the MDC has done absolutely the most responsible thing”.

In the south-west, however, where there have been fewer attacks, “a lot of people said they wanted to vote against Mugabe and have been denied”, says David Coltart, an MDC Senator for Bulawayo. “But they have not been brutalised the way people in the north have.”

He says Mr Tsvangirai was “damned if he continued and damned if he didn’t”.

Some 1.5m Zimbabweans have poured into their ravaged homeland’s vast southern neighbour since 2005, according to a recent report by Human Rights Watch. Other estimates put the total as high as 3m – almost equivalent to the population of Cape Town.

They are caught in a dangerous limbo, pinioned between atrocities and economic ruination at home and the mobs that have stalked Johannesburg in recent weeks, killing dozens of African foreigners, brutalising hundreds more and sending streams of migrants from squatter camps into refuges such as the Methodist mission.

SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
By Violet Gonda
24 June 2008

Morgan Tsvangirai has officially resigned from the presidential run-off. MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said the party had personally handed a letter to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission on Tuesday afternoon. He said the MDC would now wait for a response from the electoral commission. Chamisa added that the party would not endorse or recognize the election and the results thereof.

However the Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa has told AFP new agency the run off election will go ahead as planned on Friday despite Tsvangirai’s withdrawal from the presidential the race.

Chinamasa is quoted saying: “Any withdrawal verbal or written is a nullity,” adding that if Tsvangirai had wanted to pull out of the race he should have done so 21 days before the first round of voting on March 29.

Tsvangirai first announced his withdrawal at a press conference on Sunday, saying politically motivated violence has made it impossible for a free and fair poll. Scores of MDC members have been killed, tens of thousands injured, arrested, displaced and the government retribution against its perceived opponents is continuing, despite worldwide condemnation.

The MDC leader himself has sought refuge in the Dutch embassy in Harare.

Despite overwhelming evidence of violence on the ground Chinamasa told the AFP political violence was not so bad as to affect the outcome of the polls.

Meanwhile independent legal opinions commissioned by the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC) have said the run-off should have been held by April and therefore the delay and the absence of a lawful run-off means the candidate who received the most votes in the first round should be declared the winner. That would of course be Morgan Tsvangirai.

The Star (Johannesburg)
June 24, 2008
By Peta Thornycroft, Louis Weston and Hans Pienaar

Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai sought refuge at the Dutch embassy in Harare as Robert Mugabe’s government said it would press ahead with Friday’s presidential run-off despite Tsvangirai’s withdrawal.

The Movement for Democratic Change leader went to the Dutch embassy, a large compound in the east of the city, after announcing his pullout on Sunday.

“He asked to come and stay because he was concerned about his safety,” a Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in The Hague yesterday.

Tsvangirai had not requested political asylum.

Earlier, the MDC said police raided its Harare headquarters and took away more than 60 victims of violence, including women and children.

The MDC said nearly 90 of its supporters had been killed by militias backing Mugabe since the March 27 elections.

It added that newly elected Thamsanqa Mahlangu, a deputy for a constituency in Bulawayo, “is battling for his life in an intensive care unit after armed Zanu-PF militia attacked him on Sunday”.

Meanwhile, the Zimbabwean government said it was pressing ahead with the election.

“We don’t have a war. We will be able to hold credible elections,” Zimbabwe Electoral Commission chairperson George Chiweshe said.

Zanu-PF spokesperson Patrick Chinamasa told the state-controlled Herald newspaper yesterday: “Zanu-PF is not treating the threats (of world condemnation) seriously; it is a nullity. We are proceeding with our campaign to romp to victory on Friday.”

MDC legal expert David Coltart said in his interpretation of the Electoral Act that it was too late for a formal withdrawal and that the run-off would have to go ahead.

Associated Press
By ANGUS SHAW and JOHN HEILPRIN
24 June 2008

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe’s opposition leader took refuge in the Dutch Embassy after pulling out of the presidential runoff, and the U.N. Security Council condemned the government Monday for a “campaign of violence” that has prevented a fair election.

President Robert Mugabe and other top leaders pledged to press ahead with Friday’s vote, despite the international criticism and the lack of a viable opposition.

In a unanimously approved statement, the 15-nation council said it “condemns the campaign of violence against the political opposition ahead of the second round of presidential elections,” resulting in the killing of scores of opposition activists and other Zimbabweans.

The U.S., France and some other Western powers tried but failed to include language asserting that Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai should be considered the legitimate president, until another fair election can be held.

Council members also warned that the violence and restrictions on opposition activists imposed by the government of President Robert Mugabe “have made it impossible for a free and fair election to take place” on Friday.

Tsvangirai returned to Zimbabwe a month ago to campaign, despite warnings by his Movement for Democratic Change party that he was the target of a state-sponsored assassination plot.

Since then, his top deputy has been arrested on treason charges — which carry the death penalty — and Tsvangirai has repeatedly been detained by police. His supporters have faced such violence that the opposition leader said Sunday he could not run.

Dutch officials said Monday that Tsvangirai sought shelter in their embassy in Harare following his announcement Sunday that he was withdrawing from the runoff, but said he did not ask for political asylum.

Inthenews.co.uk
Monday, 23 June 2008

Morgan Tsvangirai’s failed challenge to Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe has left the international community up in arms.

He had been due to contest a second-round runoff with the much-vilified incumbent on June 27th but withdrew, claiming persecution of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters made the vote neither free nor fair.

The move ends hopes that Mr Mugabe would be forced to relinquish power through the ballot box, after a period of intense international attention on the state of the south African country.

It has suffered under an ongoing economic crisis for years largely because of Mr Mugabe’s failed land reforms. To read up on background to the election crisis click here . Read on for a summary of how Mr Mugabe clung on to power.

A new hope

On March 29th Zimbabwe went to the polls to choose their new parliament and re-elect president Robert Mugabe, who has been in power since 1980.

That, at least, was the script from Zanu-PF’s point of view. Mr Mugabe was widely expected to breeze home through a mixture of his party’s natural dominance and – according to the cynics – a little vote-rigging.

The following day saw the first indications of what was to follow. Zanu-PF’s main challenger, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), claimed victory in the elections. Its supporters based their claim on unofficial counts of results published in polling stations across the country.

The Zimbabwe Election Commission remained silent as the world looked on. On April 6th Mr Mugabe requested a recount but it was not until April 13th that the election body ordered a partial recount.

Pressure builds

Radio New Zealand
23 June 2008

Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has withdrawn from a run-off election against President Robert Mugabe.

He says a free and fair poll is impossible in the current climate of violence, and urged the United Nations and the African Union to intervene to stop “genocide” in Zimbabwe.

“We in the MDC have resolved that we will no longer participate in this violent, illegitimate sham of an election process,” he said.
Morgan Tsvangirai won a presidential election in March, but failed to secure enough votes to avoid a run-off against Mr Mugabe.
Zimbabweans are due to go to the polls on 27 June. Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa said Zimbabwe would proceed with the poll unless Mr Tsvangirai officially notified the election authorities he was pulling out.

In a later statement, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change said army helicopters were patrolling over Harare and Bulawayo, the second largest city, and that Zimbabwe was effectively under military rule.

It said more than 2,000 youth members of Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party were on the rampage, attacking citizens in central Harare.

Mr Tsvangirai has been detained five times during the campaign and the party’s secretary-general is in custody on a charge of treason. He faces a death sentence if convicted.

On Friday Mr Mugabe vowed never to hand over power to the MDC. “Only God who appointed me will remove me - not the MDC, not the British”, he said.

Movement for Democratic Change Senator David Coltart, told Morning Report regional leaders should remove diplomatic recognition from President Mugabe, to would force him to negotiate with the opposition.

PM condemns election ‘farce’

The Prime Minister says the election process in Zimbabwe has become a total farce, and there is no democracy, as anyone would understand it, in the country.