President Robert Mugabe tightened his grip on Zimbabwe today with victory in a Senate poll seen by critics as a mere formality, but critics say low voter turnout showed deepening dissatisfaction with his 25-year rule.
Mr Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party went into Saturday's elections for a new upper chamber of parliament a certain winner, thanks to an opposition boycott in many constituencies and electoral laws that reserve seats for loyalists such as tribal chiefs.
Final results announced on Monday showed the ruling party won 24 of the 31 seats that were up for grabs against 7 for the main opposition, giving it a near 90 percent majority in the 66-seat Senate which will have the final word on any new laws.
But analysts say that despite the ZANU-PF victory, the government had been embarrassed and Mugabe's own credibility hurt by a voter turnout of only 10 percent after a boycott campaign by the main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai.
"The government's confidence has been shaken ... and there will be many people in his camp who will be looking at this as a sign that they are isolated and are losing support," said Eldred Masunungure, a leading political commentator.
"What this might do is to undermine their loyalty to Mugabe and ZANU-PF, and although we might not see public desertions, some of his lieutenants will be wary of taking open positions against the opposition," he said.
In a sign of growing U.S. animosity towards Mugabe, a senior U.S. official described the election as "a nonevent" and said the low voter turnout revealed the extent of the average Zimbabwean's esteem for a Senate created by Mugabe as a "source of patronage for ruling party politicians."
"It doesn't seem as though the Zimbabwean people took these elections very seriously ... as a real exercise in democracy," U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.