WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2008-04-03 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
By Godfrey Marawanyika
Harare – Zimbabwe’s ruling party geared up for a final battle to keep Robert Mugabe in power, saying Thursday it was ready for a presidential election run-off with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
While state media said a run-off was now the most likely outcome after no clear winner emerged from Saturday’s election, a government spokesperson said 84-year-old Mugabe’s party was ready for a new battle in the second round.
Meanwhile there were the first public signs of the efforts of African diplomats to mediate between Mugabe and Tsvangirai, with Sierra Leone’s former president Ahmed Tejan Kabbah revealing he had met with both men.
Tsvangirai’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) maintains its leader has surpassed the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a run-off, but says it will fight a deciding contest if necessary.
There has still been no official word on the outcome of the presidential ballot five days after the poll, but the election commission announced overnight that the MDC had won control of parliament.
Despite the loosening of his grip on power which began with independence from Britain in 1980, deputy information minister Bright Matonga indicated Mugabe was in no mood to step aside.
“Zanu-PF is ready for a run-off, we are ready for a resulting victory,” said Matonga, who is also a leading Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front deputy.
He said the party had “let the president down” in the first round and had not diverted enough energy into its campaign.
“In terms of strategy, we only applied 25 percent of our energy into this campaign… That (the run-off) is when we are going to unleash the other 75 percent that we did not apply in the first case.”
A smiling Mugabe made his first public appearance on Thursday since the polls when he met election observers from the African Union, footage on state television showed.
Kabbah, who headed the AU mission which monitored the polls, said Mugabe appeared “relaxed” during their talks.
“He is of the view that the problems facing the country will be resolved amicably. He hopes the rest of the results will be forthcoming,” he said.
Kabbah also revealed he had earlier met with Tsvangirai, who had “some good words to say about the president”, without giving further details.
Despite his party’s proclamation of victory, Tsvangirai has refrained from declaring himself the president – a move seen as having helped prevent any major unrest among his restive followers.
Police were manning a number of roadblocks for routine checks in the capital on Thursday but there was no other sign of an overt security presence.
Meanwhile representatives of the presidential candidates were due to meet with electoral commission officials to witness the verification of the results, according to commission sources.
However results were expected to be announced at the very latest by the end of Friday, the sources said.
The commission is first due to announce the outcome of the contest for the largely toothless upper house of parliament, the senate.
The electoral commission wrapped up final results of the parliamentary contest in the early hours, giving the MDC 109 seats against 97 for Zanu-PF.
The situation is slightly complicated by a split in the MDC ranks, with 10 of the newly-elected lawmakers part of a rebel faction.
Frustrated with the silence from the commission, the MDC pre-emptively released its own results on Wednesday indicating that Tsvangirai had won the presidency outright with 50.2 percent of votes against 43.8 percent for Mugabe.
However a report in Thursday’s state-run Herald newspaper predicted that Tsvangirai would “fall far short” of the total needed for an outright victory and that “a run-off appears the most likely outcome”.
Edgar Tekere, a one-time cabinet minister who is now one of the president’s arch critics, feared Mugabe would still try and cling to power.
“They (Zanu-PF) have lost control, and so has Mugabe, if he is not trying to resort to to his habitual tricks of stealing the vote,” Tekere said.
“I hope that he does not try that as that will be absolutely foolish and plunge us into chaos.”
The economy of Zimbabwe has been in meltdown since the start of the decade, with inflation now standing at over 100 000 percent and unemployment at beyond 80 percent. Even basic foodstuffs such as bread are now in scarce supply. – Sapa-AFP
Source: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=nw20080403142847470C440611