Harare — Voting was declared closed Monday night in Zimbabwe's controversial presidential election, despite last minute opposition attempts to have polling extended to an unprecedented fourth day by the High Court.
The Registrar-General, Tobaiwa Mudede, whose office supervises the election, announced on state television: "We have told presiding officers to close polling stations at 7.00pm (1700 GMT) and we have indicated to them that this is when the voting should end. As I speak, voting has ended."
After the order, police in riot gear, some firing tear gas and shooting into the air, dispersed thousands of voters from polling stations in the capital, Harare. Most of them had not had the chance to vote.
Chaotic voting on Monday and continuing long queues at voting centres in and around Harare prompted the opposition to seek a further High Court order to extend the vote to Tuesday.
Voting started up to five hours late in Harare and ballot stations remained closed in the rest of the country, in defiance of the High Court order for the government to continue polling countrywide.
But the court refused the second opposition request in 24 hours to allow more time for voting. The judge said he had no jurisdiction in the matter and that the decision lay with the registrar-general.
On Sunday, another judge had agreed to continue the weekend vote into Monday to allow all Zimbabweans to cast their ballot.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) of the main presidential challenger, Morgan Tsvangirai, had accused the government of deliberately slowing the vote to disenfranchise MDC supporters, to the benefit of President Robert Mugabe.
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At a news conference earlier on Monday, a resigned Tsvangirai told reporters: "Because thousands of people are not allowed to vote, this is a stillborn election." But he urged MDC loyalists to show restraint, despite repeated opposition allegations of widespread attempts at rigging the poll by the authorities.
Zimbabwe's information minister, Jonathan Moyo, dismissed the opposition's complaints, accusing the government's opponents of wholesale intimidation and violation of election regulations.
Moyo said the counting of votes would start on Tuesday with a possible result as early as Wednesday.
Meanwhile, four U.S. diplomats detained earlier in the town of Chinhoyi have been released. They were first stopped at a checkpoint and then taken to a police station where they were held for five hours. U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said: "The United States is going to protest the incident in the strongest terms directly to the government of Zimbabwe."
