Word: tsvangirai
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...past two weeks, Zimbabweans in South Africa have cowered in fear as xenophobic mobs have rampaged through townships splitting heads and burning flesh to send them a simple, ugly message: Go home. On Thursday, they heard the same message echoed from an unlikely quarter. Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai made a surprise visit to a police station in Alexandra township, where hundreds of his compatriots have sought refuge from the mobs, and urged them to follow him home. Tsvangirai is facing an increasingly violent political challenge at home, with supporters of President Robert Mugabe unleashing a campaign of intimidation against...
...weeks to the day after Zimbabwe chose opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai over Mugabe by a margin of 47.9% to 43.2% (the remaining votes also went to opposition candidates) and granted his Movement for Democratic Change (M.D.C.) a parliamentary majority, reports continue to emerge of a vicious, nationwide campaign of intimidation, including the beating, torture and killing of opposition supporters by the security forces and their allied militias, and the arrest of hundreds of others. Journalists are also prime targets. Several foreign correspondents have been arrested for working without accreditation in the past few weeks (Zimbabwe routinely denies accreditation to almost...
More than a month after Zimbabwe went to the polls, electoral authorities on Friday finally announced a result in the presidential race: a do-over. The Zimbabwe Election Commission said opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai had won 47.9% of the vote to President Robert Mugabe's 43.2%. That means that, officially, no candidate has won an outright victory of more than 50%, a scenario which, under Zimbabwean electoral law, mandates a second round run-off within three weeks. "Since no candidate has received the majority of the valid vote cast... a second election shall be held on a date...
...admission that Mugabe did not win the March 29 poll is not, as some have suggested, a landmark concession on the part of the regime that has ruled Zimbabwe for 28 years. Rather, it signals Mugabe's intention to hold onto power. Reacting to the result, Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which says its own calculations show its leader won more than 50%, angrily rejected the result. MDC secretary-general Tendai Biti claimed at a press conference in South Africa that the vote count had been rigged. "Morgan Tsvangirai is the President of the republic of Zimbabwe...
...Zanu-PF regime and its independence has therefore been suspect. The rationale behind the regime's month-long wait before releasing the result and, then, its announcement of another round seems simple: delay and regroup. Mugabe's regime indicated a few days after the poll that it knew Tsvangirai had beaten Mugabe. (The state-controlled Herald newspaper reported Mugabe had failed to win reelection and predicted a second round runoff.) Meanwhile, the Election Commission announced that the MDC had won a majority in parliament and a few days ago confirmed that result after a recount...