Mugabe Officially Declared Winner of Zimbabwe's Crucial Election

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, March 14, 2002

Mugabe Officially Declared Winner of Zimbabwe's Crucial Election

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Zimbabwe's Election Commission Wednesday officially declared incumbent President Robert Mugabe winner of the country's crucial presidential poll, with his main rival Morgan Tsvangirai of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) dismissing the exercise as "fraudulent".

Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede said Mugabe polled a total of 1,685,212 votes against 1,258,401 by Tsvangirai.

Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe for 22 years, got 426,811 more votes, or 56 percent of the total, compared with Tsvangirai's 41.7 percent, he said.

"I, Tobaiwa Mudede do hereby declare Robert Gabriel Mugabe, who received the majority of the total valid votes cast, as president of the Republic of Zimbabwe," Mudede announced.

The senior electoral official said a total of 2,298,758 valid votes were cast in the election, which was contested by five candidates.

Some 5.6 million people were registered to vote in the country with some 13 million population.

Analysts say the reelected president, candidate of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), received much of his votes from the rural areas, the traditional ZANU-PF stronghold, where voter turnout was considered much higher than in towns and cities.

Meanwhile, MDC candidate Tsvangirai rejected the election result, saying the presidential vote was "massively rigged" and that 1 million voters had been disenfranchised.

"We have been cheated of the right to freely and democratically elect the president of our choice," said the trade unionist-turned politician.

"We seek no confrontation with the state... it is up to the people of Zimbabwe to take whatever action they feel they want to, " he said.

Earlier, the MDC accused the government of reducing the polling stations in the urban areas to prevent its supporters from voting.

However, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa described the result as a "runaway victory" for Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party.

Chinamasa said the whole election process was free and fair and there was no violence across the country.

Meanwhile, there are fears of violent backlash by opposition supporters. Security forces have been put on high alert and police have set up roadblocks on the main approach roads to the capital Harare.

And there are reports that dozens of heavily armed soldiers have taken up positions around the MDC's office in the country's second city of Bulawayo.

However, a check by Xinhua correspondents showed peace prevailed in Harare's streets they visited after the final results were announced from the country's 120 constituencies, contrary to incidents of violence in the run-up to the election.

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