by Bayano Valy – SANF 05 no 36
The Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) has won convincingly in the 2005 parliamentary elections, and will have two-thirds of the seats in the sixth parliament.
ZANU PF won 78 seats in its rural heartland, while the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won 41 seats largely in urban areas. There is one independent, the former Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Professor Jonathan Moyo, who won his Tsholotsho seat.
Ten more seats will be filled through an election by the Council of Chiefs, as well as 10 provincial governors and 10 other appointees by the President.
ZANU PF increased its share of the popular vote to almost 60 percent, including an improved showing in urban areas.
President Robert Mugabe was in an expansive mood when he met the media, saying that, while there could be one winner in such a contest, the two parties should work together within and outside parliament.
Addressing journalists at State House, in his first official reaction to the elections results, he handed an olive branch to the opposition, saying that “we remain ready to interact with MDC and other members of the community who want to work with us.” He added that he is ready for reconciliation with his arch rival, the British Prime Minister Tony Blair, if Mr Blair is also ready.
He praised the MDC for having contributed to the peaceful mood that enveloped the country ahead of the poll, and he urged them to accept defeat gracefully. However, he warned that the government would not countenance MDC’s tactics of disrupting the country. “We can have our own mass action to meet their mass action, and that will result in conflict,” he said.
The MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai had told journalists an hour earlier that his party rejects the poll results as fraudulent, and has called on its members, supporters and Zimbabweans to “pressurise the regime into reversing this electoral fraud.”
Calling for mass action from the Zimbabwean people to press the government to annul the results, he said there were structural problems with the election, including the delimitation of constituencies, although this was not raised in advance of the elections, only after the results were known.
Tsvangirai said his party has already started circulating pamphlets calling for the rejection of the election results, alleging the poll had been rigged. This view is not supported by the international observers, who have expressed satisfaction with the conduct of the elections.
Mugabe said that his government would use the country’s laws to quell any disturbances, adding that history “has shown us MDC are not peaceful people.” He was referring to a wave of illegal strikes waged by MDC cadres following the 2000 election results.
Mugabe dismissed Tsvangirai’s call for mass action as a “political statement they have to make in face of defeat.”
“They must say something to their people to boost confidence. It’s a confidence-boosting strategy. They don’t mean it,” he said.
Mugabe said the victory of his party in the parliamentary elections shows the strength of political parties associated with the liberation struggle in the region.
“The confidence we had of achieving a two-thirds majority is based on the fact that we’re a strong party which has a strong popular support,” he said.
The strong popular support “is not just for us, but for the ANC in South Africa, the MPLA in Angola, SWAPO in Namibia, and Frelimo in Mozambique,” he said referring to ruling parties that brought independence to the respective southern African countries, and have subsequently won successful multi-party elections.
Mugabe said the people do not forget. “They don’t forget that these parties gave them freedom.”
With the exception of MPLA in Angola where the last elections took place in 1992 and the results were rejected by the then rebel movement UNITA which then took arms to contest their defeat, these parties have made inroads in areas perceived to be opposition strongholds in recent elections. (SARDC)
