Harare — Vote counting continued Tuesday across Zimbabwe with early results, late evening, putting President Robert Mugabe ahead of his main challenger, Morgan Tsvangirai of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Government officials said the results could be expected on Wednesday.
But after three days of polling in the country's controversial presidential ballot, Mugabe's government faced a barrage of criticism, damning its conduct of the election, from independent observers.
The Zimbabwean Election Support Network (ZESN), an umbrella group of 38 church and civic organizations, condemned the poll, saying "there is no way these elections could be described as substantially free and fair."
The ZESN, which tried to accredit 12,000 local observers, but was granted 400, said in a statement that the ballot violated almost every electoral norm outlined in a protocol developed by member states of the Southern African Development Community in March last year.
Tsvangirai's MDC has accused the government of intentionally manipulating the election process to prevent opposition supporters from voting, so that Mugabe could steal the election. The ZESN agrees and said, in a statement on Tuesday, that tens of thousands of people had been prevented from voting.
"Even as vote counting begins, tens of thousands of Zimbabweans were deliberately and systematically disenfranchised of their fundamental right to participate in the governance of their country," said the Network.
The ZESN endorsed the MDC view that the government had radically reduced the number of polling stations in areas where the opposition had strong support, which led to huge queues, chaotic delays and congestion. The Network noted a "phenomenal rise" in voting centres in Mugabe's traditional rural strongholds, saying "It appears there has been a deliberate attempt to significantly inflate the numbers of voters in the rural areas."
The government has rejected the accusations and brushed aside its critics, dismissing them as biased, anti-Mugabe, opposition supporters. "There are people with a fatal hatred of the president," the information minister, Jonathan Moyo, told reporters on Monday, again accusing the foreign media of campaigning for Tsvangirai's MDC.
Moyo concluded: "This has been an exemplary election in our view." The justice minister, Patrick Chinamasa, said Zimbabweans had voted "freely and fairly, in a peaceful manner."
A catalogue of criticism came also from Norwegian election observers, who found flaws, irregularities and abuses in the election process every step of way. Zimbabwe's presidential poll failed to meet international election standards, said the head of the 25-member Norwegian observer mission, Kare Vollan. He told a news conference that his team "concludes that the presidential elections failed to meet key, broadly accepted criteria for elections."
Vollan said: "The presidential elections in Zimbabwe in March 2002 were conducted in an environment of strong polarization, political violence and an election administration with severe shortcomings."
The Norwegians also held Mugabe's Zanu-PF responsible for pattern of the violence and intimidation that characterized the lead up to the election. "Even though incidents have been reported from both sides, the evidence shows clearly that in the vast majority of cases, the ruling party has been to blame," said Vollan. Norwegian observers have been in Zimbabwe since February 12, with most observers arriving on February 25.
Zimbabwe's electoral authorities were blamed by the Norwegian observers, for preventing tens of thousands of people from voting in the capital, Harare, and neighbouring Chitungwiza, in defiance of a court order to keep polling stations open on Monday.
The presidential vote was scheduled for the weekend of March 9-10, but was prolonged for an extra day by the High Court in a bid to allow thousands of people still waiting in line at the end of the second day, to vote.
Norway's team became the largest European election observer group in Zimbabwe after the European Union's observers pulled out following the exclusion of their leader by Mugabe's government.
The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, which does not have accredited election observers, also delivered a damning indictment of the presidential ballot. It spoke of an orgy of nationwide state-sponsored violence and a systematic terror campaign by Zanu-PF activists since the constitutional referendum in Zimbabwe in February 2000. The Coalition said the election process "failed to meet most of the basic requirements for a free and fair process."
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It is in this tense political climate that Zimbabweans await the result of the controversial presidential election which pitted the veteran 78-year-old, guerrilla leader-turned-statesman Mugabe against Tsvangirai, a 50-year-old former trade union leader with the power of oratory.
Mugabe has dismissed his main rival as a puppet of the former colonial power Britain and Zimbabwe's minority whites, derogatorily known as "Rhodies" (Rhodesians). He says London, which granted Rhodesia independence in 1980, is manipulating Tsvangirai so that it can recolonise Zimbabwe. Tsvangirai, says Mugabe, is strong on rhetoric and sketchy on policy.
Victory for the opposition challenger would end 22 years of Mugabe's increasingly contested leadership, which has seen the Zimbabwean economy collapse and its currency plunge. Tsvangirai's campaign watchword was 'Chinja', 'Change', a slogan his supporters chanted enthusiastically as they prepared to vote.
But Mugabe is a savvy survivor and a wily politician. Almost an octogenarian, he appears determined to tighten his iron grip on power and retain the presidency of Zimbabwe for another 6 years.
