Zimbabwe: "big turnout" a slap in face for critics
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's state-run Herald newspapersaid on Saturday the presidential election turnout could be arecord and that this was a slap in the face to world leaderswho had criticised President Robert Mugabe.
A storm of condemnation from inside and outside Africagreeted Mugabe's decision to hold Friday's election, in whichhe was the sole candidate. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangiraiand Western powers denounced the poll as illegitimate.
Tsvangirai, who won the first round on March 29 but pulledout of the run-off and took refuge in the Dutch embassy becauseof what he called state-backed violence, said millions ofpeople stayed away from polling stations despite intimidation.
The U.N. Security Council said it deeply regretted thestaging of the election because free and fair conditions didnot exist, and Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutusaid the world had the right to intervene to end the crisis.
Many Western leaders urged the African Union to take actionat a summit in Egypt on Monday, saying Mugabe's 28 years inpower had to end because the political turmoil and economicmeltdown in Zimbabwe threatened regional security.
The Herald contradicted international media reports thatmany Zimbabweans boycotted the ballot and statements bywitnesses that government militias forced people to vote forthe 84-year-old Mugabe.
"Initial reports from polling stations countrywide indicatethat this would be the biggest turnout Zimbabwe has ever had,which is a slap in the face for detractors who claimed this wasMugabe election'," said the Herald.
The newspaper said the election was peaceful and quoted theZimbabwe Electoral Commission as saying counting had startedand that it hoped to begin announcing results on Saturday.
On Friday, Tsvangirai, who says almost 90 of his supportershave been killed, told a news conference: "What is happeningtoday is not an election. It is an exercise in massintimidation with people all over the country being forced tovote."
BALLOT ALLEGATIONS
A witness in Chitungwiza township, south of Harare, toldReuters voters were forced to hand the serial number of theirballot paper and their identity details to an official fromMugabe's ZANU-PF party so he could see how they voted.
The Zimbabwe Crisis Coalition rights group said villageheads had "assisted" teachers to vote in some rural areas afterforcing them to declare they were illiterate.
The top official of the African Union said there could beno immediate solution to the problem of Zimbabwe.
"I am convinced it will be solved in a credible way. Butplease give us time to solve it with our heads of state," AUCommission chairman Jean Ping said at a foreign ministers'meeting ahead of Monday's summit.
South African President Thabo Mbeki is the designatedregional mediator for Zimbabwe, but has been widely criticisedfor being soft on Mugabe despite his country having to copewith millions of Zimbabwean refugees.
In New York, the U.N. Security Council said in aunanimously agreed statement that it was "a matter of deepregret" that Zimbabwe went ahead with the election, but someWestern diplomats said the text was far too weak.
The statement, watered down from a much tougher previousversion, was backed by the whole 15-nation council, includingSouth Africa, China and Russia -- all of which had been longopposed to any discussion on Zimbabwe.
Western diplomats said the statement was disappointingbecause it did not say the results would be illegitimate.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the council's currentpresident, said Washington was talking to other council membersabout the possibility of imposing sanctions against Zimbabwe.
But diplomats said resistance from South Africa, China andRussia meant any sanctions were unlikely to be imposed by thecouncil. Rather they would be imposed by the United States, theEuropean Union and other Western governments.
Tutu said African countries should declare Mugabe anillegitimate leader and impose a blockade of landlockedZimbabwe, including a flight ban.
"A government has the obligation to protect its citizens.If it will not protect them ... or it is unable to do so, thenthe international community knows now that it has an instrumentto intervene," Tutu told Britain's Channel 4 Television.
Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980,has presided over Zimbabwe's slide into economic chaos withinflation estimated to have hit at least 2 million percent. Heblames Western sanctions.
(Additional reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe and CrisChinaka; Editing by Paul Simao, Muchena Zigomo and RalphGowling)