Zim’s Biti fined for poll results

ZIMBABWE’S former finance minister and senior opposition politician Tendai Biti was yesterday convicted and fined $200 (R2 824) for unlawfully and falsely announcing the results of last year’s presidential election that was won by Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Biti, the vice-chairman of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, was charged last year after announcing that MDC leader Nelson Chamisa had won the presidential election. Biti was later deported by Zambian authorities after a failed asylum bid.

The MDC and Chamisa still dispute Mnangagwa’s victory, upheld by the country’s top court, and say Zimbabwe’s political and economic problems will not be fixed until the president’s legitimacy is resolved.

Magistrate Gloria Takundwa said Biti would be jailed for six months if he commits a similar offence in the next five years. Biti’s lawyer Alec Muchadema vowed to appeal against the conviction and sentence.

| Reuters A SUPPORTER of Pheu Thai, Thailand’s opposition party, wears a T-shirt with a picture of former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra at an election campaign in Ubon Ratchathani Province, Thailand, yesterday. Pheu Thai is the largest of several parties in the election linked to Yingluck’s brother, ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 coup. The party retains support among the poor, but faces a battle in the election next month, with new rules that prevent any one party gaining a big majority.