ZANU PF looses majority in Parliament
-MDC declares Tsvangirai as president

BY Wilson Watson

HARARE, Zimbabwe- The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by Morgan Tsvangirai has won the majority seats in parliament, and declared that its leader has also won the presidential elections although no official figures have been released four days after the people voted on Saturday.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has only released results of parliamentary elections of which Tsvangirai’s MDC won 99 seats against ZANU PF’s 97. The other MDC faction led by Mutambara won 10 seats while an independent candidate won on seat.

Three by-elections will be held in three constituencies where MDC Mutambara candidates died before the elections were held.
The win by MDC effectively ends President Mugabe’s ZANU PF party dominance in national politics since the country attained independence in 1980.
Although no official results have been announced for the presidential elections by Thursday afternoon, as the Zimbabwean Election Commission (ZEC) said they were still verifying the votes MDC on Wednesday announced that it has won the presidential race basing on their own counts done at all polling stations.

Results from all polling stations across the country were displayed at the polling centers soon after the elections were through.
Tendai Biti, the secretary general of MDC party has said Tsvangirai has won by 50.3 percent.
He said according to his party’s calculation, a total of 2.3 million people voted in the election.

“1,170,179 voted for Tsvangirai which is 50.3 percent of the electorate while 1,043,349 voters, representing 43.8 percent voted for Mugabe,” said Biti.
However he said if ZEC comes up with different figures, his party would accept a run-off under protest.
Under Zimbabwe law, a presidential candidate must garner more than 50 percent to be declared an outright winner.
Failure would mean a run–off within 21 days after the results are announced.
However ZANU Pf has reacted angrily to the proclamation by the MDC that it has won the presidential race.

“What Biti and Tsvangirai did is unlawful and they should be warned against announcing results. They have no power to do that,” said George Charamba, President Mugabe’s spokesman.
He said it was only the prerogative of ZEC to announce the results.
The delay in the announcement of the results has created a lot of condemnation from both local and international community.
A number of people said ZEC’s conduct was now suspicious.

“Why are they not announcing the results? It is such actions that end up creating situations like what happened in Kenya. Everyone is now thinking that they are busy doctoring the results to suit President Mugabe,” noted political commentator Brian Kagoro.
The international community has also called for ZEC to quickly announce the results.
Britain, United States of America and other nations have all issued statements calling on ZEC to announce the results.
A lot of theories have emerged on why the commission was withholding the results.

Former information minister Jonathan Moyo who is the only independent MP in the new parliament said, authorities were not coping with defeat.
He said security chiefs, who have said they would not accept an opposition victory, were anxious.
“You have generals who unwisely, or rather foolishly, told the world that they would only salute one candidate, who happened to have lost the election,” he told reporters.

Security chiefs in Zimbabwe announced before the elections they were not going to salute any other candidate other than President Mugabe.
Other reports have suggested that Mugabe has already fled the country and security chiefs were still negotiating how the power transition could be done.
Since election date, President Mugabe has not appeared in public.
However his spokesman has maintained that the president was in the country and like anyone else was waiting for the announcement of the results.

However even if President Mugabe managed to squeeze his way and be declared winner, he is likely to face stiff resistance from the opposition in parliament that has indicated that for the sake of unity they were looking at forming an alliance to fight ZANU PF.
A combined opposition will have 110 seats in the parliament against ZANU PF’s 97 making them the majority to influence the crafting of laws.
Both factions of the MDC have hinted on forming an alliance as a way of crippling Mugabe’s rule Themba Nyathi, the director of elections in the MDC Mutambara faction said the party was set to meet to consider an “arrangement in the best interest of the majority of Zimbabwe”
He said: “What is important in our political consideration is what arrangement would be in the best interest of the majority of Zimbabweans. However every decision in our party is made through the relevant organs and in this case, the national council will meet to make a decision on that (forming an alliance with Tsvangirai),” he said.

Nelson Chamisa, the MDC Tsvangirai faction’s spokesperson also hinted on the alliance said the opposition in the country has claimed a “clean majority”
“We have 99 seats and with one won by Prof Moyo whom we were working with the figure comes to 100. Over and above that, we have other seats from our colleagues (MDC Mutamabara) and this gives us s very clean majority,” said Chamisa.
He added that what was now certain was that the speaker of parliament, one of the most powerful position in the country would fail to the MDC.