Zimbabwean opposition official denied asylum and faces arrest at home
HARARE, ZIMBABWE — A top Zimbabwean opposition official fled to Zambia on Wednesday but was denied asylum and is expected to face arrest at home as concerns rose over a government crackdown after last week’s disputed presidential election.
Tendai Biti, Zimbabwe’s former finance minister and a senior leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, said he is going to be deported, according to Dewa Mavhinga of Human Rights Watch.
Mavhinga said Biti told him: “It looks like they have made a decision to hand us back to the junta. We are truly in God’s hands.”
Biti’s plight follows scenes of the military opening fire in the streets of Zimbabwe’s capital a week ago, killing six people, and growing opposition claims of harassment. The events challenged assertions by newly-elected President Emmerson Mnangagwa of a “flowering” of democracy after longtime leader Robert Mugabe stepped down in November under military pressure.
The MDC has denounced Mnangagwa’s July 30 election victory as fraudulent and vowed to challenge it in court this week.
Biti had declared before the official election results were announced Friday that opposition leader Nelson Chamisa had won, a claim also made by Chamisa himself.
“In a normal country, Chamisa would be sworn in right now,” Biti told reporters.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has said it is illegal to release results before its own official announcement.
Mnangagwa was more restrained during the vote count, saying only that the situation looked positive. However, some reporting in state-run media declared him the winner before the commission did.
The opposition has seven days from the commission’s announcement to file a court challenge. Chamisa’s lawyer Thabani Mpofu said Wednesday the MDC will file a challenge. That would delay Mnangagwa’s inauguration planned for Sunday.
Biti was named along with Chamisa in a search warrant issued last week that said they and several others were suspected of the crimes of “possession of dangerous weapons” and “subversive material” as well as “public violence.”