|
|
Change Your Life! |
First-ever
parliamentary election in Zimbabwe |
|
News |
|
|
June 25, 2000
HARARE,
Zimbabwe (AP) - For the first time since independence, Zimbabweans
are faced with a real opportunity to change the face of their government
when they cast votes in two-day parliamentary After months of political violence and intimidation many rural voters among the country's 5.1 million registered voters may fear ruling party retribution if they vote for the opposition - or if they vote at all. "Zimbabweans are really torn between hope and fear," said Alfred Nhema, head of the political science department at the University of Zimbabwe at Harare. With the economy suffering its worst economic crisis ever, conditions were ripe for the first serious challenge to President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front party since it led the country to independence from white-minority rule in 1980.
Though the 9-month-old opposition Movement for Democratic Change has never been tested in an election, a recent poll showed them winning 70 of the 120 seats being contested. But the party would need at least 76 seats to have a majority, because Mugabe appoints the remaining 30 seats in the 150-member parliament.
The polls opened with long lines forming in Harare's poor township suburbs. In Mbare suburb a line of more than 1,000 voters snaked around a community hall used as a voting station.
At one polling station on the southern tip of Harare, more than 60 people lined up quietly talking and reading newspapers as they waited to cast their votes.
Trust Mpodyi, a 25-year-old sales representative, said people want change.
"We as young people are too worried about our future," he said. "We need change, change, change, change."
In wealthier suburbs, hundreds of people, including many of the nation's 70,000 whites, waited to cast their ballots. After years of apathy, "we haven't seen this kind of turnout since the independence elections" in 1980 said Mike Auret, a candidate for the opposition MDC.
A high turnout, especially of young first-time voters, would favor the opposition, Auret said.
First results of polling are expected Monday. Independent election monitors said voting was proceeding smoothly and there were no immediate reports of violence during voting.
"From what we've seen so far, people are very good natured," said Elliot Rusike, a monitor from the Zimbabwe Council of Churches.
The opposition party reported Saturday one of its candidates in the southern town of Masvingo was critically ill after being assaulted by ruling party militants on Wednesday. Zachariah Rioga, 53, was flown by air ambulance to Harare in a coma, the party said in a statement. Mugabe, whose term lasts two more years, is not on the ballot. But the opposition tapped into strong voter anger with Mugabe when it helped successfully campaign for the defeat of a February referendum on a new constitution supported by the ruling party - the party's first electoral defeat ever.
Since then, more than 30 people have been killed and thousands more injured in a wave of political violence that has been blamed largely on ruling party militants. Many opposition candidates campaigned surreptitiously for fear of retribution. Others fled their districts altogether. Human rights groups and opposition politicians worry about the effectiveness of a campaign they say was largely intended to frighten opposition supporters from going to the polls. "Already it's been unfair ... because the method of campaigning has been so ruthless," said Koomalo Zwelithin, a 25-year-old English teacher at Gloag middle school, about 200 miles southwest of Harare, the capital.
As part of its campaign, the government has held back teachers' annual raises until after the election, Zwelithin said. But the promise of a paltry salary increase will not affect his vote. "All we're interested in is democracy. We want political change, not just hazy economic change," he said. |