MDC announces another set or results, claims victory

HARARE  - The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has maintained its defiance and announced another set of results claiming that it is still leading from over half of the ballot counted.

Tendai Biti, the MDC secretary general said of the 128 constituencies counted their party candidate Morgan Tsvangirai was leading with 60 percent, while President Robert Mugabe and Simba Makoni have 30 and 10 percent respectively.

He said of the 128 constituencies, MDC had claimed 96.  Zimbabwe has 210 constituencies.

Biti said the results so far announced by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) were still tallying with theirs. ZEC has announced 24 constituencies with MDC and Zanu PF sharing the spoils.

”We pray that there won’t be sudden re-creation of the people’s will,” said Biti. “Run-off is the worst case scenario. But Morgan has won this election, not Mugabe. The results so far indicate that MDC is not popular in the urban areas alone but in the rural areas too, because we have won iN some mother of the rural areas of Zimbabwe. We now have more seats in the rural areas than in the urban areas. We are party of farmers and the landless.”

He maintained that the MDC was not usurping ZEC powers of announcing the results.

He said ZEC needed to speed up announcing results to avoid the situation getting out of hand.

”Why are they delaying, shadowy activities will start to happen in the dark with additions and subtractions of votes – but that will not be acceptable,” said Biti. “ZEC must not seduce Zimbabweans to do what is not in their DNA matrix – which is violence. Their silence (and slow pace) is fertilizing that and an atmosphere of suspicion.”

He castigated the SADC observer mission's report that declared the election free and fair.

”With all due respect how can one declare an election free and fair when there are issues such as unequal access to public media, that eludes our wisdom,” said Biti. “Mugabe, a candidate, changed laws and we had to go to court to have a voters’ roll.”