Zimbabwe - the poll fixing continues

In Zimbabwe I learn that President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party has asked electoral officials to delay declaring the results of the recent presidential election and to recount votes. Zimbabwe's state media has said the governing Zanu-PF party requested a recount because there had been "errors and miscalculations". The stuffed ballot boxes that could not all be deployed at the actual election count because too many were required will now be brought into use to give Robert Mugabe just enough votes to force a second round of voting or if he is feeling really brazen enough to win by a small but decisive amount in the first round.


Meanwhile the Mail on Sunday reports that "In a dramatic escalation of tension, armed police prevented opposition lawyers from entering the High Court in Harare to apply for an order forcing the release of last Saturday's election results.

'We can't go in. They are threatening to shoot. They are saying no one enters the court,' said Alec Muchadehama, a lawyer for the opposition Movement for Democratic-Change (MDC). "