Anti-mugabe voters flee
AN ELDERLY white couple have fled their farm after being told that they were to be arrested for voting against President Mugabe, according to their daughter.
They were visited by three men on their small farm near the village of Chegutu, 120km southwest of Harare, a day before the vote.
The men allegedly said that they were officials of Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change ( MDC), before pulling open their shirts to reveal Mugabe campaign T- shirts underneath, and identifying themselves as agents of the Central Intelligence Organisation, the feared secret police.
The couple have asked that their names not be published. However, their daughter, Heidi Visagie, agreed to speak to The Times.
‘‘My mum and dad are in a total panic,’’ she said. ‘‘They are packing up everything they can take with them and coming to Harare.’’
There were conflicting reports yesterday on the scale of Mugabe’s victory. With most seats declared, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said Zanu- PF had won 137 seats in the 210-seat chamber, just short of two-thirds. But Mugabe’s main rival, Prime Minister Tsvangirai was dismissing the result as a ‘‘sham’’.
The reaction to the election by observers was also mixed. The African Union said it had ‘‘ grave’’ concerns, and regional monitors from southern Africa said that, although Wednesday’s vote was peaceful, it was too early to pronounce it fair.
The MDC, which earlier denounced the vote as a ‘‘farce’’ due to mass fraud in the voter registration process, said that it was prepared to take to the streets to challenge the victory. It also raised the prospect of a legal challenge, despite a plea from the Southern African Development Community to accept the result.
According to Visagie, her parents had been targeted before, when they were beaten up and locked in their home in 2002, at a time when white farmers were being driven from their land by Mugabe’s loyalists.
‘‘It has been constant harassment,’’ she said.
Visagie said her parents had told the three secret policemen that they were apolitical and would not be voting, but the men were unconvinced.
The couple voted on Wednesday, anyway. ‘‘They almost didn’t, after what happened. But I said I was determined to vote, so they did, too.’’
Yesterday a relative of Visagie was stopped in the village by the local head of the Zanu (PF) youth organisation. ‘‘ He said he had been directed by the CIO men to tell my parents they were going to be arrested for voting for the MDC. They are terrified,’’ she said.