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Zimbabwe opposition angry with delay of poll results
[PRESSTV] Zim-bob-we's opposition accused the election commission on Tuesday of deliberately delaying results of this week's vote to favor the ruling party, reporting irregularities in the first poll since the removal of Bob MuggsyMugabe  Nonagenarian President-for-Life of Zim-bob-we who turned the former Breadbasket of Africa into the African Basket Case. Dumped in November 2017 when the Missus decided she wanted to be president, and opposed heer might against Crocodile Mnangawa Important safety tip: If your opponent goes by the name Crocodileandf your title is Shopper in Chieflet him win.... in a November coup. Even though the election passed off peacefully, several water cannon trucks patrolled outside the central Harare headquarters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) as its red-shirted supporters danced in the streets. Some local results from parallel parliamentary elections have been declared but the Zim-bob-we Electoral Commission (ZEC) has yet to produce any figures from Monday's presidential vote. ZEC chief Priscilla Chigumba said the presidential election result may not be ready until Saturday. Former MDC finance minister Tendai Biti and ZESN, the main domestic election monitor, said one in five polling stations - more than 2,000 in all - had not physically posted tallies on their doors, as required by law. That omission gave room for the ZEC, which ZESN and the opposition have accused of bias, to manipulate the results in favor of President Emmerson Mnangagwa and the ruling ZANU-PF party, Biti said. "There is a deliberate delay in formally announcing results," Biti told a news conference, characterizing it as "interference with the people's will." ZESN and other civil society groups were preparing a legal challenge to force the results into the open, Biti said. ZEC said there was no rigging or cheating in the vote, whose credibility is vital in Zim-bob-we's attempts to emerge from the pariah status and economic decay into which it sank in the latter half of Mugabe's nearly four decades in charge. However, the hip bone's connected to the leg bone... ZEC did not explain the failure by the polling stations to post results. The poll is a two-horse race between 75-year-old Mnangagwa, a long-serving security chief who took over after Mugabe's removal, and 40-year-old MDC leader Nelson Chamisa. Posted by: Fred 2018-08-01 |
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