It never rains but pours in Old Southern Rhodesia : BREAKING: Zim Election Official Resigns Over ‘Vote Fraud’ Amid concerns that Zimbabwe’s general election was riddled with fraud that has handed an overwhelming victory to President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party, a senior official with the electoral management body resigned late on Friday citing electoral fraud. Rita Makarau, ZEC Rita Makarau, ZEC The resignation by Mkhululi Nyathi is the latest blow to ZANU-PF’s insistence that it won a resounding victory in a free, fair, credible and legitimate electoral process. A number of independent observers have cast doubt on the conduct of the election and Mr Mugabe’s claim to another five years in power. Mr Nyathi, a constitutional lawyer who was a commissioner of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), tendered his resignation on Friday saying he was not happy with the way the July 31 election was conducted. “I hereby tender my resignation from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission with immediate effect. I do not wish to enumerate the many reasons for my resignation, but they all have to do with the manner the Zimbabwe 2013 harmonised elections were proclaimed and conducted,” he said in his resignation letter. Mr Nyathi also said that although Zimbabweans had conducted themselves with dignity and calm throughout the electoral process, these were not the only benchmarks for “free, fair and legitimate elections”. His resignation came as MDC-T decided at an emergency meeting in Harare to reject the declared result of the election declaring a ZANU-PF victory on the grounds that the vote had been rigged. The party also dismissed the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and African Union (AU) missions’ assessment that the polls were credible and the result legitimate. Both the AU and SADC missions did, however, raise a number of anomalies in the electoral process, and both gave their blessing to the process though with clear caveats. Nevertheless, ZANU-PF claimed a resounding victory with a two-thirds majority in the parliament. President Mugabe’s main presidential challenger, MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai, called the election a “farce” and by late Friday a consensus appeared to be building within the party for a boycott by successful party candidates to parliament and other legislative bodies. The party hierarchy was due to meet on Saturday to discuss a way forward.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Aug 2013 10:51:06 +0000
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