To absolutely no one’s surprise, Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party has announced the results of a recount in the first two of 23 constituencies. Just to keep it interesting and in a ridiculous attempt to give the impression they’re being fair, ZANU-PF said the opposition MDC retained one of its already-won seats.

More from the BBC.

Meanwhile, Zwnews.com reports:

Independent election monitors say they have seen significant irregularities, including the illicit opening of ballot boxes, that makes the partial recount under way of Zimbabwe’s election an exercise in “futility”. As the recount enters its fifth day, and with the election commission saying it could take many more yet, foreign observers have documented concerns in many of the 23 constituencies where presidential and parliamentary votes are being counted again.

A monitor with the Southern African Development Community, Dianne Kohler-Barnard, says she witnessed tampering in two constituencies that “points to a concerted effort to rig the result in order to bring about a Mugabe ‘victory’”.

In Mberengwa West they brought the first four boxes down for counting. Each box has two of the blue ties with numbers on it that are used to seal it along with padlocks. They had a whole set of duplicates of the blue ties, with the same numbers, on the other side of the hall. The keys to the padlocks are inside envelopes sealed with wax. All the seals were broken. I can only surmise that the keys were removed and the padlocks unlocked. Then they discovered that the protocol register, which lists how many voting books were used and the numbers, was missing.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 8 am and is filed under africa, politics.