Zimbabwe Votes in One-man Show

HARARE — Zimbabweans voted Friday, June 27, in a one-sided presidential run-off amid accusations that voters were being forced to cast their ballots for incumbent president Robert Mugabe.
"I will not be voting," Terrence Mukumba, a Harare-based bank employee, told Reuters.

"I think it does not make sense to vote when one of the candidates has already withdrawn from that contest."

Voting began shortly after 0500 GMT and turnout was thin at some polling stations in the capital Harare.

Future of Democracy and Zimbabwe Struggle!

"I have been queuing since 3:00 am but I was the only one," he said.

"This is an exercise I feel I have to be part of because I love my country."

Incumbent president Mugabe is standing in Friday's poll after opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew over violence against supporters.

"I am here to exercise my vote. It does not make a difference for me (that only Mugabe is standing)," Tabeth Masuka said at a polling station in Harare's Avondale suburb.

The poll has been widely condemned amid calls for the polls to be postponed, saying Mugabe's re-election as the only candidate could lack legitimacy.

Shameful

Opposition leader Tsvangirai described the vote as shameful, calling on Zimbabweans to boycott it.

"Today's results will be meaningless because they do not reflect the will of the people of Zimbabwe," he wrote in a letter to supporters.

"If possible, we ask you not to vote today. But if you must vote for Mr Mugabe because of threats to your life, then do so."

In some areas of the country, there were allegations officials were inspecting ballot papers before they were deposited in boxes.

A senior activist from Tsavangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in Mapanda, near the Mozambique border, said he had intended to spoil his paper but was confronted by an official from Mugabe's ZANU-PF party who demanded to see his voting slip.

"There was no way out. I had to vote for Mugabe," he told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Friday's vote comes some 13 weeks after an initial ballot which saw Mugabe beaten into second place with 43.2 percent against 47.9 percent for Tsvangirai.

The simultaneous March 29 presidential and legislative election also saw ZANU-PF lose control of parliament for the first time since independence from Britain in 1980.

The MDC says Mugabe has since reversed the odds in his favor through a campaign of violence and intimidation, claiming more than 80 of its supporters have been killed by ZANU-PF thugs.

Mugabe made clear in his final campaign rally he wants to continue as president after ruling uninterrupted since independence.

"We will continue to rule this country in the way we believe it should be ruled," he said Thursday.

Mugabe is accused by critics of leading the once model economy to ruin and trampling on human rights.

Zimbabwe has the world's highest inflation rate and is experiencing major food shortages.

Mugabe has pledged the opposition will never come to power in his lifetime and vowed to fight to keep it from occurring.