Mugabe aides discuss ceding power

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Advisers of President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai are discussing the possibility of Zimbabwe’s longtime leader relinquishing power, the Associated Press learned today.

Independent observers say trends indicate Tsvangirai won the most votes in the presidential race, but not enough to avoid a runoff — a prospect that could be humiliating to the 84-year-old president.

No returns from Saturday’s presidential vote have been made public, fueling fears of rigging. Mugabe has been accused of stealing past elections, though that was before Zimbabwe’s economy collapsed and leading members of his own party openly defied him.

A person close to the Electoral Commission told the AP that Mugabe has been informed he is far behind Tsvangirai in preliminary election results, and that there could be an uprising if Mugabe were declared the winner. The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said aides to both men were discussing Mugabe’s ceding power.

There has been no official confirmation from either side.

Marwick Khumalo, head of the Pan-African Parliament observer mission, said top members of Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party were worried the government may have lost the elections.

“I was talking to some of the big wigs in the ruling party and they also are concerned about the possibility of a change of guard,” he told South African Broadcasting Corp.’s SAfm radio.

“ZANU-PF has actually been institutionalized in the lives of Zimbabweans, so it is not easy for anyone within the sphere of the ruling party to accept that ’maybe we might be defeated or might have been defeated,”’ he added.

It took the Electoral Commission 30 hours to release results for 132 parliamentary seats. Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change won 68 of those seats, including six for a breakaway faction. Mugabe’s party had 64.

Lovemore Sekeramayi, an electoral official, went on state television to say the commission was receiving presidential votes and would need to collate and verify them.

“We urge all Zimbabweans to remain patient as we go through this meticulous process,” he said.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for the immediate release of results.

“Results should be published immediately and the elections must be seen to be fair,” Brown told reporters in London. “It’s very important that the democratic rights of the Zimbabwe people be respected and upheld and recognized.”

Tsvangirai’s party said he was leading the presidential race with 60 percent of votes, based on counts reported from 128 of the 210 parliamentary districts.

The party gave Mugabe 30 percent of the votes and the rest to Simba Makoni, a former Mugabe loyalist. Tsvangirai lost narrowly in 2002, according to official results that observers charged were rigged.

The opposition party also claimed it had an overwhelming lead of 96 of the 128 parliamentary seats for which it had results.

“We have won an election. Mugabe’s victory is not possible given the true facts,” Tendai Biti, secretary-general of Tsvangirai’s party, told reporters yesterday.

If the margins reported by the MDC hold, it would be a crushing blow to Mugabe, who headed a guerrilla movement that fought a seven-year bush war to end white minority rule and bring democracy to Zimbabwe in 1980.

Mugabe was hailed then for his policies of racial reconciliation and development that brought education and health to millions denied those services under colonial rule. Zimbabwe’s economy thrived on exports of food, minerals and tobacco.

The unraveling began when Mugabe ordered the often-violent seizures of white-owned commercial farms, ostensibly to return them to the landless black majority. Instead, Mugabe replaced a white elite with a black one, giving the farms to relatives, friends and cronies who allowed cultivated fields to be taken over by weeds.

Today, a third of the population depends on imported food handouts. Another third has fled the country as economic and political refugees, and 80 percent is jobless. Life expectancy has fallen from 60 to 35 years and shortages of food, medicine, water, electricity and fuel are chronic.

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network, a coalition of 38 Zimbabwe civil society organizations, said its random representative sample of polling stations showed Tsvangirai won just over 49 percent of the vote. A presidential candidate needs at least 50 percent plus one vote to avoid a runoff. Mugabe was projected to come in second with about 42 percent, and Makoni trailed at about 8 percent.

The coalition said it based its projections on tallies posted at a representative, random sample of 435 polling stations in Zimbabwe’s 10 provinces, and that its work was reviewed by an independent statistician.

The opposition figures come from results ordered to be posted on the doors of the 9,000 polling stations in the country. This initiative, part of an agreement between the parties negotiated by South African President Thabo Mbeki, was new and could make it more difficult to cheat.

Still, Mugabe has powerful backers who have benefited from his rule. While younger army officers are reported to be losing patience with Mugabe, security chiefs said before the election they would not accept an opposition victory.

Military officers and ruling party leaders receive mining concessions, construction contracts and preferential licenses to run transport companies and other businesses.

Amid the ruins, a rapacious minority grew richer under Mugabe, its wealth displayed through the preponderance of luxury vehicles seen around Harare, including many a Mercedez-Benz and even a few Hummers.