Fear stalks Zimbabwe elections

WRAPPED in blankets against the chilly morning weather, Zimbabweans went to the polls yesterday to pick a new parliament, despite fears of vote rigging by president Robert Mugabe’s ruling party.

As day dawned in Harare, queues began forming outside dozens of polling stations. Riot police in blue and grey uniforms were a menacing presence, walking up and down the lines of people.

Outside a large white tent set up as a polling station at Kamfinsa Shopping Centre, to the east of the capital, voters whispered their surprise at the turnout. There had been fears that months of intimidation could deter supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) from casting their ballots.

"I was up at five," said one man waiting to vote. "I went for a drive and saw queues. Then I woke my wife up to vote."

In many places there was a grim determination in the air, in sharp contrast to the hopeful exuberance of presidential polls three years ago.

"Let’s hope it’s over quickly," whispered an elderly voter.

The MDC says Mr Mugabe and his ruling Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) "stole" the last two elections in 2000 and 2002. Casting his vote in the suburb of Highfield, Mr Mugabe, 81, said: "It’s going to be a victory for us." Yesterday’s polls were likely to be the last the elderly Zimbabwean president will preside over.

By mid-morning, queues had swelled. Hundreds waited in front of the red-painted Mai Musodzi Hall, in Harare’s oldest suburb of Mbare.

"Queues are a Zimbabwean tradition," joked opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai as he cast his vote with his wife Susan at Avondale Primary School.

"I’m hoping that the outcome will be an MDC victory," he said. But he expressed his dissatisfaction with the government’s preparations for the polls.

"This is not going to be a free and fair election," he said. State radio, which ran live election coverage throughout the day, said the voting process had been massively speeded up.

During the presidential polls, thousands of voters waited for up to 12 hours at polling stations. By mid-afternoon yesterday most polling stations across the capital were deserted.

More than 5.6 million Zimbabweans were eligible to vote.

Speaking from Bulawayo, former opposition MP David Coltart said he estimated turnout in the city to be "about 50 per cent".

"There’s a lot of scepticism about the democratic process," he told The Scotsman. "There was more apathy in middle-class areas, which we anticipated."

While voting was mostly peaceful, threats of violence were never far away. In Manyame constituency, Mr Mugabe’s nephew and ruling party candidate Patrick Zhuwawo was reported to have instructed his supporters to chase away local observers.

An opposition candidate briefly went missing in the politically volatile rural constituency of Insiza after his polling agents were allegedly threatened by a gun-wielding government minister - claims which the police described as "scurrilous".

Elsewhere, two British journalists, Toby John Harden, 37, and Julian Paul Simmonds, 46, of the Sunday Telegraph were arrested on charges of covering the election without accreditation, an offence that carries a fine and up to two years in jail.

The first results from the election are expected tomorrow.