Zimbabweans afraid to vote without monitors, says church official

Published: 2008-05-05

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- Zimbabweans will be afraid to return to the polls unless runoff elections are internationally monitored, a church official said after official results showed opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the most votes in the presidential election, but not enough to beat President Robert Mugabe. Harassment of opposition supporters and those involved in monitoring the March elections is happening mostly in rural Zimbabwe, said Alouis Chaumba, head of Zimbabwe's Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace. In a May 4 telephone interview, he said "people are scared" to vote in a runoff because they fear for their lives. With "polling agents being accused of being enemies of the state who want to sell out the country," few will want to be involved in monitoring the runoff, "which leaves the process open to cheating," he said. "People voted for change and now feel utter disbelief" as they are told they need to vote again in a runoff, he said. Those who voted in Zimbabwe's March 29 presidential and parliamentary elections "feel like it was a futile exercise and have lost faith in the process," Chaumba said. Election officials said May 2 that Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, took 47.9 percent of the vote while Mugabe, 84, who has led Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980, took 43.2 percent. Zimbabwe election law requires 50 percent plus one vote to avoid a runoff.

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