Zimbabweans Wait Patiently for Official Presidential Poll Results

Amid reports that Zimbabwe’s main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) intends to use the courts to force the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to release results of the 29 March presidential election, the ruling ZANU PF party has announced that it would field incumbent President Robert Mugabe in a possible second round of the polls.

The reports come days after the ZEC releases full parliamentary election results, leaving out the most awaited presidential returns still a mystery in the current stand-off between the ZANU PF’s Mugabe and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, whose party already announced days ago that it had won both the parliamentary and presidential elections.

However, it is the word of the ZEC that counts most (and officially) for the impasse to be broken, and the ZEC’s silence is what has forced the MDC to turn to the courts, it said.

Commenting on the polls in Zimbabwe, Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika told journalists at his New State House residence that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders’ silence on the goings-on in Harare was a matter of African solidarity.

“It’s not that we have nothing to say about the situation in Zimbabwe. But African solidarity demands that we leave it to South African President Thabo Mbeki to deal with such issues,” Mutharika told the reporters during a three-hour “presidential chat” he hosted in the Malawi capital Friday.

SADC in early 2007 mandated Mbeki to negotiate peace between ZANU PF and the MDC during the period leading up to the polls which took place on 29 March.

Until the results of the presidential contest are released, Zimbabweans ears will remain glued to radios in anticipation of the ZEC much awaited results announcement.

Source African Press Agency

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