President Mugabe speaking at a ceremony launching an agricultural mechanisation project in Zimbabwe during March of 2008.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
Zanu-PF, MDC-T share first 10 Senate seats
Herald Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Electoral Commission late last night started announcing the results of election to the new Senate, with MDC-Tsvangirai and Zanu-PF each taking five of the first 10 seats announced.
Each province elects six senators, for a total of 60, who are joined by 18 chiefs plus 10 provincial governors and six presidential appointees.
So long as voting patterns follow fairly closely those for the House of Assembly, the final result is likely to be very close. There are fewer candidates from minor parties and fewer independents running for the Senate, as compared to the Assembly, and the grouping of larger blocks of voters tends to remove anomalies.
Last night’s results gave MDC-Tsvangirai five seats in Harare Metropolitan Province and Zanu-PF four in Mashonaland East and one in Masvingo Province.
From the Assembly results, MDC-Tsvangirai and Zanu-PF can expect to claim all Senate seats between them in the three Mashonaland provinces, Midlands, Harare Manicaland, Bulawayo and Masvingo.
In the Matabeleland provinces, the MDC has a chance of sharing the seats since its largest number of Assembly votes were in the these two provinces.
Each Senate seat groups a batch of Assembly seats, the number depending on how many Assembly seats there are in a province and the desire to group Assembly seats according to district and common interest.
The number of voters in a Senate constituency will vary dramatically according to both the population of a province and how Assembly seats were grouped within that province.
As a result, Senate seats in the "big" provinces, such as Harare, Manicaland and Midlands, will have far more voters than those in the "small" provinces, such as Bulawayo.
16 chiefs elected as Senate representatives
Bulawayo Bureau
A TOTAL of 16 chiefs from the country’s eight rural provinces were elected to represent traditional leaders in the Senate following polls conducted in the provinces on Monday.
The President of the Zimbabwe Council of Chiefs, Chief Fortune Charumbira, confirmed the election yesterday.
The elections were conducted by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s provincial heads and only substantive chiefs were allowed to stand as well as vote in the elections.
Each of the eight non-metropolitan provinces had to elect two chiefs to the Senate.
Chief Charumbira said the following were elected:
Matabeleland North: Chief Shana from Jambezi and Chief Gampu from Tsholotsho
Matabeleland South: Chief Bidi from Matobo and Chief Masendu from Bulilima.
Masvingo: Chief Mabika and Chief Chitanga.
Mashonaland East: Chief Masarurwa and Chief Nyamukohwo.
Manicaland: Chief Chimombe and Chief Chiduke.
Midlands: Chief Ngungumbani from Mberengwa and Chief Ntabeni of Silobela.
Mashonaland West and Mashonaland Central: Results were not available although Chief Charumbira confirmed that elections were also held in the provinces.
Chief Charumbira, who was recently re-elected to the post of president of the Chiefs Council, giving him an automatic ticket to the Senate, said the elections were held in a free and fair environment and the outcome represented the wishes of the chiefs.
He said the chiefs who were chosen were of a high calibre and expressed hope that they would contribute meaningfully during debates in the Senate.
Chief Charumbira said chiefs’ contributions in the Senate were very crucial because as traditional leaders they were in touch with the people at grassroots level.
"Chiefs know the real issues that affect the people at the grassroots. In any case, the Senate is a law-making body and you cannot separate judicial functions from the chiefs as they have been carrying out those functions for a long time.
"You also want the laws of the nation to be rooted in the morals, culture and ethics of the nation. Chiefs are the cradle of those values and that’s why they should be in the Senate," he said.
MDC man accused of threatening farm takeover
Herald Reporter
A MAZOWE man has been arrested on allegations of threatening a farmer and soldier with violence.
Ignatius Mudawaro (28), who resides at Muguti Farm, is further accused of threatening to take over the farm and bottle store owned by Ms Moddy Grace Mahoho once the MDC won the elections.
Mudawaro has since been arraigned before Harare magistrate Mr Lazarus Murendo for allegedly making threats of violence.
He was remanded in custody to April 21 for trial.
Appearing for the State, prosecutor Mr Francis Muyambo alleges that during polling on Saturday, Ms Mahoho, who is based at Army Headquarters in Harare, went to her farm in Mazowe.
While at the farm, it is the State’s case that she went to a bottle store where she found Mudawaro drinking beer in the company of his friends.
According to the court papers, Mudawaro began provoking Ms Mahoho and denouncing war veterans for voting for Zanu-PF.
It is alleged that Mudawaro claimed that the MDC had already won the elections before threatening to take over Ms Mahoho’s businesses at the farm.
He even threatened to burn down the bottle store the same night, it is alleged.
Mr Muyambo said Mudawaro had no right to act in the manner he did.
The incident comes at time when there are reports of white former commercial farmers threatening to grab back the land that was repossessed by the Government and redistributed to the black majority, in the event that the MDC wins the 2008 harmonised elections.
The cases were reported in Mashonaland West, where some white ex-farmers who had settled in Zambia are said to have camped at Kariba, awaiting to invade the farms once the MDC wins the presidential poll.
In the same province, some farmers reportedly visited their former properties and threatened settlers.
Elsewhere, farmers who had settled in South Africa and Mozambique are said to have gathered at Beitbridge and Chikwalakwala respectively for the same purpose.
British interest in poll telling
By Peter Mavunga
IT HAS been a momentous week. The harmonised presidential, parliamentary and local elections have concentrated the minds of many Zimbabweans wherever they are. But they have also attracted a level of interest from beyond our borders; a level of interest that left me intrigued.
In Britain, the interest has been keen. This has manifested itself in acres of newsprint devoted to the subject; journalists (like John Simpson) smuggling themselves into Zimbabwe despite the ban on the BBC; and a debate in the House of Commons in which David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, made a full statement.
Miliband said the level of interest is due to their concern for Zimbabweans whose will, he argued, had to be respected. He called for the results of the elections to be published as soon as possible as further delay was likely to heighten suspicion.
This of course sounds wonderfully balanced and diplomatic although it does not hide the fact that the statement is given from the point of view of a government minister who, like many before him, wants President Mugabe to go.
If anything, the whole media coverage has been about maximising the President’s discomfort to facilitate his "departure". A good example of this pre-occupation was Jeremy Paxman’s question for Cde Boniface Chidyausiku, Zimbabwe’s USA envoy, on Newsnight on Wednesday night.
"Why doesn’t he just go?" Paxman asked.
"To go where?" came the rhetorical question in reply. And quite right too!
For all their "good" intentions and ‘‘love’’ for the people of Zimbabwe, the British interest in Zimbabwe’s electoral process ought to be seen in the context of their perceived interests in the country. If we lose sight of this we do so at our own peril.
The purpose of this article is not in any way to argue that President Mugabe should not go if that is what the people of Zimbabwe desire. He himself will not deny this given that he is the man who brought democracy to a troubled people who had been denied the vote since colonial times by the white man.
The point I make here is that the responsibility to remove Cde Mugabe from office or any public servant for that matter, is, after due process, a matter for Zimbabweans. It is certainly no business of the British to inject haste and sense of urgency in the process.
Election results in Iraq after the removal of Sadam Hussein took months to come out without questions being asked of the British and the Americans.
There is a due process, though, that has to be gone through. Zimbabwe has a Constitution that sets out the rules of how the electoral business is conducted in circumstances similar to those that we saw during the course of this momentous week.
Even John Simpson the BBC’s world correspondent conceded back on Wednesday that the Zimbabwe Constitution allowed the presidential election results to be published by today, Friday. Yet the sense of urgency in British political circles and media alike implies wrong doing on the part of the Zimbabwe authorities when, in actual fact, due process, which Morgan Tsvangirai, MDC faction leader said quite sensibly on Tuesday he was going to allow to take its course.
British intervention in matters like this, I am afraid, has tended to be partisan, condescending and unhelpful. It has implied that Africans, those ‘‘benighted heathens’’, cannot manage their affairs, let alone resolve their own differences peacefully.
The coded messages inherent in what they were saying was that very soon Zimbabwe was about to descend into Kenya-type chaos of murder and destruction. Talk of "tensions rising" was designed to whip up feelings of grievance to trigger a violent reaction.
Once Zimbabwe was in smoke; images of dead bodies like we saw in Kenya, would become the subject of western cameras. It is all done in the interest of informing the world what is going on in the African country. Yet, if truth be told, bodies of dead British soldiers coming from Iraq are quite rightly never paraded in public. This would be an affront of public decency.
It is essential, that Africans should consider themselves capable of doing what they have to do for themselves. Sikhanyiso Ndlovu put it nicely when he told an interviewer earlier this week that: "We do not do things in order to please you."
Yet there is an unhealthy desire to report issues of national interest to the British.
The harmonised elections were held in an atmosphere of self-imposed peace and tranquillity. It should be a measure of what a people can do without outside interference despite their differences.
The only blot to this sense of maturity was the constant stream of unofficial "results" that kept coming out as if to undermine the official results from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. True, there was political posturing and manoeuvring, as there was something in it for the MDC Tsvangirai faction.
For instance when the faction’s secretary general, Tendai Biti, repeatedly said on Sunday, the day after the elections, that "there was no room for doubt, in fact no shadow of doubt" that the MDC had won 67 percent of the vote or had won the election, it served two purposes.
First, it was a clever way of creating in the collective mind of the British public that the opposition had finally won the election. The clever bit was that given that the strategy of the opposition party was to portray Zanu-PF as a party that "rigs" and "lies" about the elections, any figures that came out officially afterwards would be dismissed by the British public as such.
But Biti’s repeated claims served another purpose: of making black people look silly. I would have thought that one claims that there is "no room for doubt" about anything when one is in possession of the full facts, not when this is but an opinion. Or one should tell the world the basis on which the claim of total sureness is made.
Another contribution to the silly season was Basildon Peta’s suggestion that Morgan Tsvangirai, whom he believed to have won, should go to State House accompanied by supporters to claim the presidency.
I notice, though, that the MDC faction leader did not choose that option. For a start it serves to undermine the very institutions that allow due process to take place in peace. It also begs the question as to whether Peta would be willing to travel from South Africa to lead the supporters?
And Bishop Desmond Tutu was also suggesting in the "London Paper" that foreign troops must be deployed to "watch Zimbabwe". He is concerned about human rights and that the country might "descend into chaos." I do not know how the cleric came to that view.
What is known is that ours is a professional army that has performed its duties excellently.
There will be no requirement of an outside force to keep it in check.
And so to depart! This has been a momentous week and one in which Zimbabweans ought to reflect coolly what happened and continues to happen. For, as I write on Wednesday night, the end results of the parliamentary and presidential elections remain unknown to me.
But whatever happens, the will of Zimbabweans must prevail not through the coercion of an external force that has an axe to grind, but through the efforts of our own people.
RBZ unveils $25m, $50m notes
Business Editor
THE Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has, with immediate effect, introduced two new bearer notes of $25 million and $50 million denominations while the cash withdrawal limit for both individuals and corporates has been doubled to $1 billion.
The new notes are expected to ease the volume of notes needed when transacting. The highest denomination was $10 million, but its effectiveness had since been compromised by rising inflation.
This is the third time since December that the central bank has introduced higher denominations in response to rising inflation.
Under Sunrise Two launched last December, the RBZ introduced $750 000, $500 000 and $250 000 bearer cheques. This was followed by the $10 million bearer cheque in January.
Cheque limits would not be adjusted at this stage as banks had made submissions to the central bank, saying customers had complained that they would be more exposed to fraud once the current limit of $10 billion was raised.
RBZ public relations officials yesterday said the introduction of the higher denominations was in response to submissions by tobacco and cotton growers whose selling seasons are impending. This is a period when large amounts of cash exchange hands.
The tobacco auction floors are expected to open on April 22 while cotton will start selling next week.
"As a pre-emptive measure, Government, through the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, has moved in to cater for the concerns of the farmers who will need easier access to cash," said one of the officials.
The new withdrawal limit had been revised from the previously proposed $5 billion as a strategy to tame speculative behaviour. Higher limits would be implemented in stages.
"We have since noticed that the more people continue to access large amounts of cash, the more they engage in speculative activities, especially on the foreign currency parallel market."
The next stage would be introduced after an assessment of how the banking public would have adjusted to the new limit.
The central bank implored on employers to pay salaries and wages through the banking system to prevent "unnecessary" movement of large amounts of cash in some instances.
The new cash limit was expected to go some way in easing access to cash by both individuals and corporates. The previous limit had since been eroded by inflation.
Depositors now needed more money to purchase groceries, pay for medical treatment, transport and other daily necessities.
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