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HARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- Zimbabwe's opposition party will ask the United
Nations to intervene to avoid bloodshed ahead of a hotly contested
presidential runoff, a party spokesman has told CNN.
1 of 4more photos ? Nelson Chamisa, a spokesman for the Movement for
Democratic Change, said Saturday the party feared President Robert Mugabe
would use violence against opposition members in the days leading up to the
runoff.
"We will have to appeal to all the international community organizations,
including the United Nations, in order to stop Mugabe," Chamisa said from the
city of Bulawayo.
Zimbabwe's ruling party said Friday that Mugabe would be willing to face
Morgan Tsvangirai in a runoff election.
The announcement by Zanu-PF was made before official results of the March 29
presidential race were announced by the Electoral Commission, which will have
the final say in whether a second round of voting occurs.
A runoff is required when neither candidate wins more than 50 percent of the
vote. Last Saturday, voters also cast ballots for House and Senate seats and
local council members. The commission is required by law to release final
figures six days after an election.
According to George Sibotshiwe, a spokesman for Tsvangirai's party, a runoff
must be held within 21 days of the announcement of election results.
Mugabe's party is in disarray, split between those who think Mugabe should
gracefully step down and those who say he should fight to stay in office, a
party member said Thursday. Mugabe has been in power since Zimbabwe became
independent 28 years ago.
Hours before the commission's midnight deadline to release all election
results, Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change filed an application
with the High Court in an effort to force the commission to release the
figures, MDC attorney Andrew Makoni said.
A hearing on the lawsuit is scheduled for Saturday about noon, Makoni said.
The MDC wants the court to order the commission to release the results within
four hours of its decision, he added.
The lack of election results has raised fears that Mugabe is working on ways
to remain in power if the vote goes against him. The decision to announce his
willingness to participate in a runoff was made Friday during a lengthy
meeting of Mugabe's party leaders, said Bright Matonga, deputy information
minister.
Zanu-PF also plans to contest 16 seats in the lower house of parliament in an
effort to keep a majority, a government official said.
The MDC barely beat Mugabe's party in the House elections, according to
official results. The state-run newspaper, The Herald, reported that it was a
"photo finish," with MDC taking 99 seats and Zanu-PF 97. A look at the
candidates ?
Totals for the Senate are not known. The commission began releasing
seat-by-seat results late Friday afternoon.
With no presidential results, Zimbabweans were nervous, said Dzikamai
Machingura, the national director of ZimRights, a human rights group.
Asked how the situation is affecting residents, he said, "Well, with regard
to the election results ... I will tell you that, typically, people are
driving to work. They get to work and they sit at their desks. They do no
productive work because all their minds are elsewhere."
Another Zimbabwean said, "People are just anxious because they're wondering
whether the results are actually, really going to come out for the
presidential race. I think because it's taken such a long time, there's a lot
of anxiety," he said.
The United States has been closely monitoring events.
"Every minute and every hour that the Zimbabwe Election Commission delays
releasing official election results gives everyone that much more reason to
suspect they are doing so not for legitimate vote-counting purposes but in
order to possibly open the door to some abuses of the system," said U.S.
State Department spokesman Tom Casey.
There were more reports of violence Friday, and police continued to hold two
Americans, including a New York Times journalist, Casey said. The Zimbabwean
government has denied cracking down on journalists and the opposition.
Casey said that two of the four Americans detained by authorities Thursday
have been released or soon will be. One of the two was New York Times
reporter Barry Bearak, who is based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Diplomatic officials who visited the detainees reported that they had not
been mistreated.
However, New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said in a statement
Friday that Bearak "is being held in a frigid cell without shoes, warm
clothing or blankets."
"He was interrogated for hours by police seeking to identify sources he may
have interviewed," Keller said.
He added that Bearak's attorney said that officials in the attorney general's
office agreed that the case, which is based on Bearak allegedly
misrepresenting himself as being accredited by Zimbabwe, should be thrown out
because the police could produce no witnesses or other evidence against him.
"But somehow the state's lawyers were overruled, and he remains in jail for a
second night," Keller said.
The National Democratic Institute said the other U.S. citizen still being
held is Dileepan Sivapathasundaram, an NDI senior program officer.
The institute said authorities picked him up at the airport Thursday as he
was about to leave the country, and the group had no word from him for 22
hours. He was found by consular officials Friday, the group said on its Web
site.
The institute called on the Zimbabwe government to "ensure his safety and
safe passage from the country."
Meanwhile, the Zimbabwean government said two journalists arrested and
charged with operating as journalists without accreditation were to be in
court Friday. Officials did not name the two.
The country's deputy information minister said they were being held at the
central police station in Harare. They would face no jail time but would have
to pay a fine, he said.
Members of the Zimbabwe Peace Project said Friday that they had received
reports that two homes had been burned in the Mudzi District of Mashonaland
East Province, and they blamed the incidents on government retribution for
those who backed opposition candidates.
Peace Project Executive Director Jestina Mukoko said the homes belonged to
people who campaigned for an MDC candidate in the parliamentary election.
"As the delay for the release of the election results prolong, we expect to
get more reports of this retribution," the director said.
Once revered as the breadbasket of southern Africa with good education and
healthcare, Zimbabwe now has one of the lowest life expectancies in the
world, schooling is a luxury and it is difficult to get even basic food
supplies.
Inflation has skyrocketed to more than 100,000 percent; food production and
agricultural exports have dropped drastically.
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