ZIMBABWE: Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe has warned the country's opposition party that any mass action undertaken following its decision to denounce the recent election results as "fraudulent" would lead to "serious conflict".
At a post-election conference over the weekend Mr Mugabe said that mass action was not the privilege of one side alone and he would not accept a call by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for the mass mobilisation of the public.
"Mass action is not the prerogative of one side. We have two or three weapons that we can use against their mass action and there would be conflict, serious conflict.
"The MDC are not peaceful people, they are very violent demonstrators which has lead to harm for businesses in the past. This is their history, but it will depend on what they are prepared to do," he said on Saturday afternoon.
Earlier that day MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai had reiterated his party's belief that "massive election fraud" had taken place following the March 31st parliamentary election polling day in which his party was comprehensively beaten.
The final vote tally for the 120 contestable parliamentary seats left Mr Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwean African National Unity Patriotic Front party (Zanu PF) with 78 seats and the MDC with 41 seats. One independent candidate, former Zanu PF information officer Jonathon Moyo, also won a seat.
A further 30 seats in the parliament are appointed by the president to bring the total number of MPs to 150.
The result leaves Mr Mugabe's party with a two-thirds parliamentary majority that will allow him to change the constitution, which has been one of his stated wishes.
A main MDC objective throughout the campaign had been to deny Zanu PF this goal.
Mr Tsvangirai denied that taking part in the election was a mistake because the decision had only been taken after massive consultation with the people in all of Zimbabwe's constituencies.
"I would say 95 per cent of the people we talked to wanted us to take part. You can only fight for democracy when you are on the inside, it can't be done from the outside," he said.
Mr Tsvangirai went on to say that following the party's decision to denounce the election, a plan that had been prepared long before the election took place was being put to the people and they were awaiting feedback before taking any further action.
However, the MDC leader would not disclose what actions the plan contained, nor would he take any of the blame for his party losing a total of 16 seats when compared to the party's 2000 election results.
"I did not contribute to the loss of this or the last two elections," he maintained.
Yesterday the Zimbabwean Election Support Network (ZESN) - a network of 35 human-rights civic organisation that had been monitoring electoral conditions in the southern African country for a number of months prior to the election - also confirmed that widespread electoral irregularities had taken place.
The network's chairman, Dr Reggie Matchaba-Hove, said that in at least 30 constituencies the number of voters tallied by the Zimbabwean Electoral Commission (ZEC) had risen from the close of the polling stations to the announcement of the result.
"In Goromonzi, which was won by Zanu PF, the number of votes announced by ZEC at 2am April 1st to have been cast by close of polling had suddenly gone up by 62 per cent from 15, 611 to 25,360 when the final results were announced on April 1st," he revealed.
There were also numerous accounts of misdemeanours perpetrated by Zanu PF supporters in relation to the hindrance of polling agents and voters who were turned away from the polling station on election day.
In the two constituencies of Makoni East and Mutasa South, which were won by Zanu PF candidates, the number of voters turned away was considerably more than the margin of victory.
Mr Matchaba-Hove commended Zimbabweans for the generally peaceful elections and confirmed the levels of violence reported during the months leading up to the polling day were far less than in previous elections.
However, he maintained Zimbabwe's electoral climate had been one shrouded in fear since the time of the 2000 parliamentary election, which were marred by serious violence, and this had lead Zimbabweans to now associate elections with violence.
As such, the many reported incidents of intimidation, including the politicisation of food distribution and the partisan role of some traditional leaders, had a significant influence on how people voted.
Dr Matchaba-Hove said a critical issue for the ZEC would be to explain how so many discrepancies in the count had taken place.