Robert Mugabe (L) rules Zimbabwe for the past 28-year; Hun Sen (R) rules Cambodia since 1985Zimbabwe's Ruling Party Loses its Majority in Parliament
By Peta Thornycroft, VOA
Harare
02 April 2008
Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party has lost its majority in parliament according to the latest official result from the Zimbabwe Election Commission. And, as Peta Thornycroft reports for VOA from Harare, this news follows an earlier announcement from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change that it believes its candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, has won more than 50 percent of the vote in the presidential race.
The Zimbabwe Election Commission's latest results indicate that the MDC and its allies will have an historic, small, parliamentary majority. ZANU-PF has held the majority in parliament since independence from Britain in 1980.
But this news was pre-empted by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, which in a media conference announced that its tally, which it says coincides with that of the independent Zimbabwe Election Support Network, shows that its presidential candidate Tsvangirai got 50.3 percent of the vote. So far there is no official tally of votes cast in the race for president.
If the MDC tally of the presidential race is correct, this would mean that Tsvangirai has won an outright victory over the 84-year-old incumbent, President Robert Mugabe.
MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti says this means there should be no need for a run-off in the presidential race which would have to take place in 21 days from when the result is officially announced. But he said Tsvangirai would be willing to contest a run-off, if the Commission insists one is required.
"A runoff in 21 days," said Biti. "That is what the law says. If that is the case, without prejudice to our position this party will contest the runoff, but we would have hoped for a situation that there will be a conceding of the result for a number of reasons, and the number of reasons being that it is unlikely that the people's will, will in any way be reversed in that run-off. If anything, there will actually be an embarrassing margin in favor of the opposition in the runoff. There is no question about that.
Biti said he hopes President Mugabe will realize that any run-off would deliver him a smashing defeat.
He adds that the party's assessment of the election results are based on actual votes cast, counted and verified by the Zimbabwe Election Commission at each individual polling station. But he notes that there are some outstanding results which have not yet been released.
Political analysts say the margins are so narrow that the MDC might be forced to accept a run-off because disputes about even one or two voting stations could significantly change the overall percentages.
Biti said the margin of error was very small, adding that his party has already called for verification of the officially announced results at some polling stations because of discrepancies with its own records.
Meanwhile the ruling ZANU-PF has described the MDC's tally of the presidential race as "wishful". Party spokesman Bright Matonga said no party could decide the winner but suggested ZANU-PF has accepted there might be a run-off for the presidential election.
The elections last Saturday were for four contests, the presidency, parliament, senate and local government.
The Zimbabwe Election Commission's latest results indicate that the MDC and its allies will have an historic, small, parliamentary majority. ZANU-PF has held the majority in parliament since independence from Britain in 1980.
But this news was pre-empted by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, which in a media conference announced that its tally, which it says coincides with that of the independent Zimbabwe Election Support Network, shows that its presidential candidate Tsvangirai got 50.3 percent of the vote. So far there is no official tally of votes cast in the race for president.
If the MDC tally of the presidential race is correct, this would mean that Tsvangirai has won an outright victory over the 84-year-old incumbent, President Robert Mugabe.
MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti says this means there should be no need for a run-off in the presidential race which would have to take place in 21 days from when the result is officially announced. But he said Tsvangirai would be willing to contest a run-off, if the Commission insists one is required.
"A runoff in 21 days," said Biti. "That is what the law says. If that is the case, without prejudice to our position this party will contest the runoff, but we would have hoped for a situation that there will be a conceding of the result for a number of reasons, and the number of reasons being that it is unlikely that the people's will, will in any way be reversed in that run-off. If anything, there will actually be an embarrassing margin in favor of the opposition in the runoff. There is no question about that.
Biti said he hopes President Mugabe will realize that any run-off would deliver him a smashing defeat.
He adds that the party's assessment of the election results are based on actual votes cast, counted and verified by the Zimbabwe Election Commission at each individual polling station. But he notes that there are some outstanding results which have not yet been released.
Political analysts say the margins are so narrow that the MDC might be forced to accept a run-off because disputes about even one or two voting stations could significantly change the overall percentages.
Biti said the margin of error was very small, adding that his party has already called for verification of the officially announced results at some polling stations because of discrepancies with its own records.
Meanwhile the ruling ZANU-PF has described the MDC's tally of the presidential race as "wishful". Party spokesman Bright Matonga said no party could decide the winner but suggested ZANU-PF has accepted there might be a run-off for the presidential election.
The elections last Saturday were for four contests, the presidency, parliament, senate and local government.
18 comments:
That doesn't sound anything like our Coolest People Party (CPP) at all, but Ah Khmer-Yuon Maggot Feeders on its way to their Vietcong's shit pit.
Hello there Viet pimp @4:48 AM,
What a freaking ugly looking Viet pimp like you doing on Khmer site/blog like KI-Media, lesjeuneskihmers.com, Khmer-network.com. khmerconnection.com eh?
Quit pretending to be Khmer and please don't bring more Viet prostitutes to Cambodia, okay?
You Viet pimp ought to leave Hun Xen alone, and the Cambodian people will take very good care of him. It's a promise from us Cambodian to you Viet pimp alright?
Yeah, it's time for you Viet pimp to pack up and leave Cambodia now!
Go Home Viet, go home!
Go Home Viet, go home!
The world knows you Viet's true colors already, not to worry!
the cambodian people will take good care of hunsen by hanging him after the election, for sure!..when yuon go home, khmer will evict the him and the CPP too. this time maybe we must dump them under south china sea!
Keep on dreaming, but when you wake up, it is Ah notorious Khmer killer Xam Rainxy that was hanged by his neck.
Hun Sen is next!
It's time now!
Eeeeeeh-Vaing!
Yes, in the year 3008, the CPP will lost the election.
May lord Buddha blessed these Yuon souls.
People Power!
This is CAMBODIA! Cambodia is not AFRICA; plus, AFRICA is the country where these retarded gorillas are belong to.
IN CASE YOU PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW WHERE CAMBODIA IS -- IF YOU CAN READ THE MAP -- LOOK IT UP IN THE MAP.
It's time to reform the CPP!
The political pluralism, the democracy, the human rights are political lies and illusions. These things never have to help the poor men to live better.
On the contrary, these things allow the richest, the powerful to defend better their rights and their privileges and to exploit completely legally the weak and the poor men.
The political pluralism, the democracy, the human rights bring in poor countries social confusions who threatens the political stability and the peace and soon coup of and civil war for take power.
Nowadays, CPP betrayed the ideal of the socialist revolution.
The CPP became capitalist.
You, formers communists and those who are disappointed by CPP and who are against the other political parties, Vote in 2008 for the new communist party, reformist, modern, anti-capitalist , political anti-pluralism, anti-Pol Pot and faithful to the ideals of the socialist revolution: the CPPP (Cambodia Parnivat People Parti).
You , former communists and were disappointed by the CPP, do not vote for abstentions in July, 2008, vote for the CPPP.
The CPPP is more modern than the CPP and more successful in the social and economic reforms according to the more effective and socialist principles, more efficient to fight against the poverty and the disparities and the economic and social injustices.
The CPPP is the new hope for those who suffer injustices of all kinds and for who dream about a better world.
Because, the hope helps to live.
The CPPP is this hope!
4:15pm
The map look like your WHORE MOTHER's pussy with thousand thousand vietcong dicks....
It's too bad that these retarded gorillas cannot read map.
Advice of the day: Learning how to read map can be very useful, in case you need to find where Cambodia is.
CPP will face the same consequences like Mexico and Zimbabwe.
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Top members of President Robert Mugabe's party are considering the possibility of having lost weekend elections, an independent African monitor said Tuesday, even as a tediously slow release of results fueled fears of rigging.
Zimbabwe's opposition has claimed victory in Saturday's presidential and parliamentary elections. Independent observers say trends support opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai winning the largest number of votes in the presidential race, but not enough to avoid a runoff.
Mugabe has been accused of stealing past elections, though that was before Zimbabwe's economy collapsed and leading members of his own party openly defied him.
Marwick Khumalo, head of the Pan-African Parliament observer mission, indicated the ruling ZANU-PF party was considering the possibility of defeat.
"I was talking to some of the big wigs in the ruling party and they also are concerned about the possibility of a change of guard," he told South African Broadcasting Corp.'s SAfm radio.
"ZANU-PF has actually been institutionalized in the lives of Zimbabweans, so it is not easy for anyone within the sphere of the ruling party to accept that 'maybe we might be defeated or might have been defeated,'" he added.
It took the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission 30 hours to release results for 132 parliamentary seats, giving the Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change 68 seats, including six for a breakaway faction. Mugabe's party had 64.
The commission has offered no results in the presidential race.
Lovemore Sekeramayi, an electoral official, went on state television Tuesday to say the commission was receiving presidential votes and would need to collate and verify them.
"We urge all Zimbabweans to remain patient as we go through this meticulous process," he said.
Some feared the delay was to allow time to rig the tally from Saturday's polls.
Tsvangirai's party said he was leading the presidential race with 60 percent of votes, based on counts reported from 128 of the 210 parliamentary districts.
The party gave Mugabe 30 percent of the votes and the rest to Simba Makoni, a former Mugabe loyalist. Tsvangirai lost narrowly in 2002, according to official results that observers charged were rigged. The opposition party also claimed it had an overwhelming lead of 96 of the 128 parliamentary seats for which it had results.
"We have won an election. Mugabe's victory is not possible given the true facts," Tendai Biti, secretary-general of Tsvangirai's party, told reporters Monday.
If the margins reported by the MDC hold, it would be a crushing blow to Mugabe, who headed a guerrilla movement that fought a seven-year bush war to end white minority rule and bring democracy to Zimbabwe in 1980.
Mugabe was hailed then for his policies of racial reconciliation and development that brought education and health to millions denied those services under colonial rule. Zimbabwe's economy thrived on exports of food, minerals and tobacco.
The unraveling began when Mugabe ordered the often-violent seizures of white-owned commercial farms, ostensibly to return them to the landless black majority. Instead, Mugabe replaced a white elite with a black one, giving the farms to relatives, friends and cronies who allowed cultivated fields to be taken over by weeds.
Today, a third of the population depends on imported food handouts. Another third has fled the country as economic and political refugees and 80 percent is jobless. Life expectancy has fallen from 60 to 35 years and shortages of food, medicine, water, electricity and fuel are chronic.
John Makumbe, a political scientist at the University of Zimbabwe, said the ruined economy had been Mugabe's downfall: "All other indications are the voting reflected Mugabe's massive loss of support because of the economy."
The Zimbabwe Election Support Network, a coalition of 38 Zimbabwe civil society organizations, said its random representative sample of polling stations showed Tsvangirai won just over 49 percent of the vote. A presidential candidate needs at least 50 percent plus one vote to avoid a runoff. Mugabe was projected to come in second with about 42 percent, and Makoni trailed at about 8 percent.
The coalition said it based its projections on tallies posted at a representative, random sample of 435 polling stations in Zimbabwe's 10 provinces, and that its work was reviewed by an independent statistician.
The opposition figures come from results ordered to be posted on the doors of the 9,000 polling stations in the country. This initiative, part of an agreement between the parties negotiated by South African President Thabo Mbeki, was new and could make it more difficult to cheat.
Still, Mugabe has powerful backers who have benefited from his rule. While younger army officers are reported to be losing patience with Mugabe, security chiefs said before the election they would not accept an opposition victory.
Military officers and ruling party leaders receive mining concessions, construction contracts and preferential licenses to run transport companies and other businesses.
Amid the ruins, a rapacious minority grew richer under Mugabe, its wealth displayed through the preponderance of luxury vehicles seen around Harare, including many a Mercedez-Benz and even a few Hummers.
The regime's friends might be concerned, along with Mugabe, by opposition calls for Mugabe to be tried for human rights abuses, perhaps in an international court.
There are fears of violence if Mugabe loses, and fears of violence if he wins.
Biti, secretary-general of Tsvangirai's party, feared people might be "seduced into violence," which could create an excuse for a military crackdown.
"Zimbabweans are not a violent people and we hope people are not provoked into violence if official results differ from those posted at polling stations," he said.
No way, the reason is they got too close to their enemies, and we didn't.
Map reading lesson: Again, retarded gorillas, Cambodia is not located in Long Beach, or (anywhere near) Africa. If you cannot recall where's Cambodia geographically situated, just remember the refugee camp in Thailand.
If the US smart, they will deported all gorillas from the slum to Zimbabwe. Otherwise, they will run the US to the poor house.
ROFL@11:17 PM,
If anybody can run the U.S to the poor house it would be the freaking Viet Troller/pimp/parasite/plunderer/leech that kiss the American's arse every second of their existing life here on earth...enough said?
To where can go the CPP by opening the big door opened to the liberalism and to the Westerners without risking its fall?
Map reading review: AGAIN -- Cambodia is not geographically situated in Long Beach, California (or in Africa).
New political science lesson: the country (Cambodia) is ran by Prime Minister Hun Sen -- not Western countries.
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