Zim on knife edge

The outgoing Zimbabwean Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, warned of a looming crisis amid reports that as many as a million voters might have been disenfranchised in fiercely contested but chaotic presidential, parliamentary and local elections.

While President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF predicted a "land slide" victory, Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, branded Wednesday's elections "a huge farce" and a ''coup by ballot".

He called on the African Union and Southern African Development Community to conduct an urgent investigation into a battery of irregularities.

"The election has been heavily manipulated . the outcome of this election is illegitimate," Tsvangirai told journalists at MDC headquarters in Harare.

"But, more importantly, the shoddy manner in which it has been conducted and the consequent illegitimacy of the result will plunge this country into a serious crisis."

He said almost 40% of voters had been turned away from polling stations.

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network, which had 7000 observers on the ground, echoed Tsvangirai's concerns.

"Based on empirical reports from our observers, regardless of the outcome, the credibility of the 2013 harmonised elections is seriously compromised by a systematic effort to disenfranchise an estimated million voters," said the network's chairman, Solomon Zwana.

The voter registration process was "systematically biased" against urban voters - many of whom traditionally support the MDC - while rural voters, Zanu-PF's major support base, were favoured, Zwana said.

"The voters' roll . clearly showed that urban voters had systematically been denied the opportunity to register to vote. A total of 99.97% of rural voters were registered, while only 67.94% of urban voters were registered," he said.

The Southern Africa director of Human Rights Watch, Tiseke Kasambala, called for an independent inquiry into reports that large numbers of voters were unfairly turned away from polling stations and into monitors' concerns about the large number of "ghost" or duplicate voters on the voters' roll.

Yesterday, The Times quoted MDC officials as saying there were more than 200 000 people older than 103 on the roll.

Last night Zimbabwe Electoral Commission deputy chair Joyce Kazembe announced preliminary results from some constituencies where counting had been completed. Zanu-PF was leading with 14 parliamentary seats in Masvingo province and 10 seats in Mashonaland. In Bulawayo, where two constituencies had been confirmed, both seats went to the MDC.

The state-controlled Zimbabwe Broadcasting Commission reported earlier that Zanu-PF had won all the seats in Manicaland province.

Former minister of education David Coltart, a member of the breakaway faction of the MDC, said he had lost his seat in Bulawayo East to the faction led by Tsvangirai, while former finance minister Tendai Biti kept his in Harare East.

Britain's The Guardian newspaper quoted Saviour Kasukuwere, minister of youth and indigenisation, as predicting Zanu-PF had won by a ''landslide".

''It's . a total annihilation of the MDC. Their project has completely failed. President Mugabe has won.''

SADC's Election Commissions Forum, comprising electoral commissions of member states, declared the polls "credible, free and fair".

Forum chairman Notemba Tjipueja said that though it was concerned about discrepancies on the voters' roll, the large number of ballot papers printed and the many voters turned away from polling stations, its conclusion was that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission had done a "tremendous" job.

"We believe that these were free and fair elections and we are urging that the results should be accepted," said Tjipueja, whose team was made up of 25 monitors.

The elections, she said, met the required standards.

But Tsvangirai said: "This election does not meet the SADC, AU and international standards for a credible, legitimate, free and fair election. We therefore call for the SADC and the AU audit teams to look into this process."

Senior MDC official Roy Bennett called for a campaign of "passive resistance".

He said: "I'm talking about people completely shutting the country down - don't pay any bills, don't attend work, just bring the country to a standstill. There needs to be resistance against this theft and the people of Zimbabwe need to speak out strongly."

But Paul Themba Nyathi, of the breakaway MDC faction led by Welshman Ncube, said of the voting in Matabeleland: "Hand on heart, I think Zanu-PF beat us fair and square. There's something that made people to fall in love with Zanu-PF again, and it's not intimidation.''

All eyes will now be on the AU and SADC observer missions.

The leader of the AU election observation mission, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, is due to release the mission's preliminary report on the elections this morning.

Europe, Britain and the US will be guided by the reports on whether to drop the sanctions they imposed against the Mugabe regime. They will also consider the views of civil society and monitoring groups.

The EU has already relaxed its sanctions and has indicated that it would drop them entirely should the elections be held under free and fair conditions.

Mugabe blocked observers from the UN and Europe from going to Zimbabwe to monitor the elections. - Additional reporting by Nhlalo Ndaba and Sapa-AFP