Ruling Zimbabwe party claims huge win

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- Ruling party officials claimed a crushing victory Friday in parliamentary elections, but opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai condemned what he called massive fraud and called on Zimbabweans to defend their rights.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change appeared to have lost seats from the 57 it won in 2000. But criticism of the election here and in the West underscored the view that its losses were due to fraud by the regime of President Robert Mugabe.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who earlier this year included Zimbabwe in a list of "outposts of tyranny," said Friday that the vote was neither free nor fair.

"The independent press was muzzled; freedom of assembly was constrained; food was used as a weapon to sway hungry voters; and millions of Zimbabweans who have been forced by the nation's economic collapse to emigrate were disenfranchised," Rice said in a statement.

Mugabe, 81, who has ruled since Zimbabwe gained independence from Britain in 1980, appoints 30 of the 150 members of the assembly. Of the remaining 120 seats, the MDC failed to win the 51 it needed to block the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union -- Patriotic Front, or ZANU-PF, from changing the constitution, strengthening its grip on power and preparing the way for a party member to succeed Mugabe.

Reginald Matchaba-Hove of the nongovernment Zimbabwe Election Support Network, which deployed 6,000 observers, predicted the opposition would get up to 41 seats.

After the 2000 elections, which also were judged to be fraudulent by international observers, the MDC launched a series of failed legal challenges. This time Tsvangirai ditched legal action and appeared to call for some form of protest action. "We are deeply disturbed by the fraudulent activities we have unearthed," Tsvangirai said told a packed news conference. "We do not accept that this represents the national sentiment. . . . This government has fraudulently once more betrayed the will of the people, led them through a garden path believing that they're going through a process which is democratically transparent and at the end of the day would reveal the true will of the people."

"We believe the people of Zimbabwe must defend their votes, their right to a free and a fair election," Tsvangirai said. "This is what has been denied." But he sidestepped a question on exactly how MDC supporters should defend their vote.

Matchaba-Hove said about 10 percent of voters were turned away from the polls. Even though violence has declined, she expressed concern about an atmosphere of intimidation.

The opposition and human rights groups have criticized the election as unfair because of the denial of food by ZANU-PF officials to opposition supporters, a highly suspect voters roll padded with up to 2 million dead or bogus voters and uneven access to the media. Mugabe has rejected the criticism as ridiculous.

Throughout Friday, results dribbled in from rural constituencies, traditional strongholds of the ruling party, a trend which worried some Western diplomats.

"The results are coming in very slowly, which in the past, was an indicator that they were cooking the books," said one diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Police responded swiftly when one women's organization, Women of Zimbabwe Arise, held a prayer vigil in a Harare square Thursday night, arresting 257 and beating many. The women were released from Harare Central Police Station on Friday. Many of them, like Emily Ngwenya, 74, had swollen faces and lacerated limbs. She said the women were praying for divine intervention on election day to bring change.

The group's coordinator, Jenni Williams, has been arrested 18 times and was critical of Tsvangirai for not leading strong, peaceful protests.

"If Morgan (Tsvangirai) really means that we must defend our vote, please can he set a good example and show us what to do and we will follow him," she said. She said he must be willing to march and face arrests and risk violence alongside his supporters.

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