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Zimbabwe Opposition Demands Mugabe Quit to Avoid Violence
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Another U.S. citizen, Dileepan Sivapathasundaram, a program director with the National Democratic Institute, has been detained since Thursday. The organization said in a statement released Saturday that Sivapathasundaram was questioned for a third day "and was released for a second night to the custody of U.S. officials with the requirement that he report again to the Harare Central Police Station on Sunday morning."
No official results have been released from the presidential election, but independent monitors as well as ruling and opposition party officials say Tsvangirai won more votes than Mugabe.
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change has said he topped the 50 percent required for a first-round victory, but ruling party officials have disputed that. An analysis by an independent monitoring group put Tsvangirai slightly below 50 percent but acknowledged that, with the margin of error, he may have reached it. Mugabe, the group said, got 42 percent compared with 8 percent for an independent candidate.
Election law requires that a runoff, if needed, be held within 21 days of the first round, but government funds are reportedly so low that organizing another vote so soon could be impractical.
Diplomatic and other sources say Mugabe is considering using emergency powers to delay the vote for 90 days to improve his chance of winning. Opposition officials and some analysts say such a delay would allow the ruling party to intimidate voters into supporting it, or at least not voting for the opposition.
"Robert Mugabe is really fooling himself to think he can beat the people of Zimbabwe for 90 days and win," said political analyst John Makumbe, a longtime government critic.
In official results for legislative races, the opposition narrowly won control of the 210-seat parliament, a historic shift for a nation dominated since its birth in 1980 by a single party. The ruling and opposition parties split the 60-member Senate with opposition forces, with each getting 30 seats.
In his remarks Saturday, Tsvangirai acknowledged the crucial role played in Zimbabwe's history by Mugabe, 84, who led the guerrilla movement that brought about the end of white-supremacist rule in this former British colony.
Tsvangirai said Mugabe was part of Africa's "generation of founding fathers," which includes such liberation heroes as Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia and Samora Machel of Mozambique, all of whom are former presidents.
Of Mugabe, Tsvangirai said, "His generation has served and gone."
