HARARE, Zimbabwe – Zimbabweans waited in long lines Thursdayto vote in parliamentary elections that President Robert Mugabe hopes willprove the legitimacy of a regime critics say is increasingly isolated andrepressive.
Before any ballots were cast,opposition leaders and independent rights groups said the vote was alreadyskewed by years of violence and intimidation.
“I think we all agree on allbenchmarks this is not going to be a free and fair election,” opposition leaderMorgan Tsvangirai said as he voted in a Harare suburb.
Encouraged by a marked drop inviolence against the opposition in recent weeks, he remained optimistic thathis Movement for Democratic Change party could muster enough support tooverturn Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front.
Mugabe said he was “entirely,completely, totally optimistic” of victory, saying he only voted to increasedhis party’s margin of success. He also dismissed the opposition’s fears offraud and said, “Everybody has seen that these are free and fair elections.”
Mugabe accuses British Prime MinisterTony Blair and other Western leaders of backing the 6-year-old MDC, the firstparty to seriously challenge his rule. He dubbed Thursday’s vote the”anti-Blair election” and MDC supporters “traitors.”
The opposition counters thatThursday’s election is about Mugabe’s own failings after nearly 25 years inpower.
Zimbabwe’s economy has shrunk 50percent over the past five years. Unemployment is at least 70 percent.Agriculture — the economic base of Zimbabwe — has collapsed and at least 70percent of the population live in poverty.
Opposition leaders blame thecountry’s economic troubles on the government’s often violent seizure ofthousands of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to blackZimbabweans.
