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Post by Flash on Apr 3, 2008 22:13:22 GMT -5
Mugabe 'should have quit long ago' Article from: AAP
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April 04, 2008 07:53am
FORMER prime minister Malcolm Fraser says Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe should have quit after the first decade of his 28-year rule.
Mr Fraser, who played a crucial role in pressing for majority rule in Zimbabwe, said had Mr Mugabe done so his good reputation would have been assured.
Now, it was enormously important that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai succeed President Mugabe.
"I only wish that Mugabe would stand aside and recognise that his time is passed," Mr Fraser told ABC radio.
"He is one of those people who, if he had been in office for 10 years, would have left with a very high reputation.
"But he has been there 18 or 20 years too long and he has done enormous damage to Zimbabwe."
Mr Fraser said he hoped the international community would provide substantial assistance to Zimbabwe once Mr Mugabe departed.
"Trying to stabilise the economy is obviously going to be critical ... there would be advice and help available," he said.
"I believe the Australian Government has already said that it would assist in this process and I am quite sure there are many countries also that would want to try and bring Zimbabwe in from the cold."
The situation in Zimbabwe remains unclear following weekend elections which ended the ZANU-PF party's long-standing parliamentary majority.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change claims Mr Tsvangirai has defeated Mr Mugabe in the presidential poll but there has been no official announcement from the electoral commission.
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Post by Flash on Apr 5, 2008 13:28:57 GMT -5
Mugabe Faces an Uphill Battle in Presidential Runoff (Update5)
By Brian Latham and Antony Sguazzin
April 5 (Bloomberg) -- President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe faces an uphill battle to win a runoff campaign after most voters supported opposition candidates in the March 29 election's House of Assembly races. Analysts said he may resort to violent intimidation to prevail.
Opposition parliamentary candidates won control of the House with 54 percent of the vote. The Movement for Democratic Change, an MDC splinter group and independent politicians won 1.31 million votes in House races, compared with 1.11 million for Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, according to official results tallied on a Web site for Sokwanele, a human rights group based in Harare, the capital.
Mugabe's opponent likely will be the MDC's leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, 56, the most popular of the three opposition presidential candidates. Tsvangirai called for talks with Mugabe and said that he guaranteed that he wouldn't be charged with human rights abuses if the MDC forms the next government.
Zanu-PF officials ``underestimated the opposition to Mugabe,'' Marian Tupy, an analyst at the Washington-based Cato Institute, said in an interview yesterday. ``He doesn't have majority support. They have overcome their shock, and they will try and hang on to power.''
Government backers have said results from the presidential ballot, which haven't been released yet, will show that none of the four candidates won a majority, an outcome that requires a runoff between the top two.
Recession, Inflation
Support for Mugabe, Zimbabwe's leader since independence from the U.K. in 1980, has been sapped by a decade of recession and the world's highest inflation rate, 164,900 percent. A program of seizing white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to blacks deprived of land during colonial rule slashed export income.
Observers from the European Union and other governments have said that Mugabe used violence, including attacks by militia led by veterans of the country's liberation war, and election law violations to win Zimbabwe's last three campaigns. There is concern that a runoff would incite a new round of state-backed violence. In previous elections, groups led by veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war have intimidated opposition voters. They yesterday held a march in Harare.
``He could unleash his thugs on the opposition,'' Tupy added. ``Don't count Mugabe out.''
Call for Dialogue
``If we go to a runoff, Zanu-PF will use the war veterans as a weapon in an attempt to reverse the MDC victory,'' Tsvangirai said in an interview from Harare. ``I am calling for dialogue, direct dialogue, with Mr. Mugabe in an effort to avoid conditions of instability. The people are getting worried now.''
Analysts said violence may mar any election run-off.
``The fear Zimbabweans have is that it could lead to three weeks of intensive violence and even deaths,'' said Michael Davies, an analyst at Sokwanele, the human rights group.
The MDC urged the United Nations to intervene to ensure there was a peaceful transition of power, party spokesman Nelson Chamisa, said. Mugabe's government rejected Tsvangirai's claims.
``He is getting desperate,'' Bright Matonga, Zimbabwe's deputy information minister, said in comments broadcast by Sky News. ``There is no need for anyone to die.''
The MDC claims Tsvangirai won the presidential election with 50.3 percent.
Victory Claim
A sampling of polling stations by the independent Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network indicated Tsvangirai received 49 percent, Mugabe 41 percent, Makoni 8 percent and Langton Towungana, the other candidate, 0.6 percent. The study has a 2.4 percent margin of error.
The opposition alleged that Zanu-PF already tried to rig last month's poll, held March 29.
``There is a well thought out and premeditated plan to steal the election,'' Simba Makoni, a former finance minister who ran for president as an independent, said in an interview. Makoni will endorse Tsvangirai in a runoff, said Nkosana Moyo, his campaign manager, in an interview in Cape Town.
Zanu-PF has made its own counter claims.
``This was a badly run election,'' said Didymus Mutasa, a Zanu-PF official. ``The MDC bribed people to vote for them and we're not going to sell our birthright for 30 pieces of silver. We're going to expose their dirty tactics.''
A court application by the MDC to force the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to release the presidential election results was postponed from today until tomorrow, Andrew Makoni, a lawyer for the opposition party, said. The commission claims the complexity of holding four elections simultaneously and unspecified logistical problems have slowed counting.
Results Posted
``We find the reasons given by the commission for the delay to be inadequate as the results were posted outside polling stations,'' said Lovemore Madhuku, chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly, a group that includes churches and labor unions, in an interview from Harare.
The results should be published as soon as possible, U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said at a meeting of leaders from 12 nations and eight heads of international institutions today in Watford, England.
``They cannot be delayed any longer,'' Brown said. ``That is the united view of everyone here.''
South African President Thabo Mbeki, who has been leading regional mediation efforts aimed at ensuring the poll was credible, said the process had to run its course.
``Let's see the outcome of the election result,'' Mbeki told reporters in Watford, where he is attending the Progressive Governance Summit with leaders including Brown. ``If there is a re-run of the presidential election, let's see what comes out of that. I think the situation for now is manageable.''
Unquestioned Rule
Mugabe's era of unquestioned rule ended after opposition politicians won 111 of the 210 seats in the House, according to official results released April 2. The MDC secured 99 seats, Mugabe's Zanu-PF won 96, and a MDC splinter group led by Arthur Mutambara got 11. An independent candidate also won a seat. The three remaining seats will be decided in later by-elections.
The MDC split in 2005 after some of its members, led by Mutambara, a university professor, decided to compete in the country's first senatorial elections. The move was criticized by the larger Tsvangirai-led faction, which boycotted that poll. Repeated talks since 2006 had failed by early this year to re- unite the party.
Mutambara will endorse Tsvangirai in the second round, a spokesman for his group, Abednico Bhebhe, said.
Before losing the House, Mugabe had controlled all levels of Zimbabwe's government since his guerrilla army ousted white- minority rulers 28 years ago.
Absolute Control
If he manages to retain the presidency, he will be a weaker, although not powerless, leader. Mugabe has used nearly three decades of absolute control to push through constitutional amendments to strengthen the presidency. He can pass laws by decree that stay in force for 90 days, after which they expire unless the House and Senate approve them.
The Senate, created in 2005 as a separate parliamentary chamber, can block legislative proposals, so it would be another check on the House's ambitions if Mugabe partisans control that chamber.
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission officials, appearing on state television, said that official results from the Senate races showed that Zanu-PF won 30 seats, the MDC 24 seats and the MDC splinter group six, according to Sokwanele's Davies.
The president of the country can also appoint six senators and 10 traditional chiefs are elected to the senate in separate elections.
To contact the reporters on this story: Brian Latham in Durban via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net; Antony Sguazzin in Johannesburg at asguazzin@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: April 5, 2008 13:00 EDT
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Post by cardigan on Jun 15, 2008 0:36:43 GMT -5
Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith says he is concerned by the latest threats made by Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe.
Mr Mugabe has vowed never to allow the Opposition to rule Zimbabwe and warned he is prepared to go to war to prevent it.
Mr Smith told ABC1's Insiders the President's language is stronger than in the past.
"This is really the starkest that he has said it, and it just confirms my feeling for the last few weeks, which is that the brutal Mugabe regime won't accept the will of the Zimbabwe people," he said.
"I think it puts more pressure on the neighbouring African states, the South African development community states and the African Union states to really try to put pressure on Mugabe to accept the will of the people."
Mr Smith says Zimbabwe's neighbours need to make a stand.
"Whenever the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia act - and we act in advance of and or separately from the African union states - Mugabe seeks to use that in a domestic political way to get an advantage," he said.
"So the primary responsibility in our view has to start with the South African Development Committee and African Union states."
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has called for the international community to prevent Mr Mugabe from stealing the Zimbabwe election.
Mr Rudd says he is concerned the country's citizens are being denied free will.
"It's important for the international community of nations, including the African Union and including the South African Development Council, speak with one voice about the importance of democracy and the will of the people prevailing in Zimbabwe."
Tags: world-politics, unrest-conflict-and-war, australia, zimbabwe
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