Another call for a Government of National Unity, this time from Zimbabwe’s ambassador to the UN, Boniface Chidyausiku. There seems to be a positively refreshing outbreak of the urge to compromise – although I suppose the key sticking point would be who would be President in any such Government. MDC will expect Tsvangirai to lead, on the basis of his (accepted) larger vote, Zanu-PF will want Mugabe to give him the opportunity to slip off the stage with dignity. But the fact that a growing number of Zanu-PF figures and Government officials are now singing the GNU song is probably the clearest indicator yet that reality is sinking in…

So yesterday’s “historic announcement” was confirmation from both Morgan Tsavngirai and Arthur Mutambara that the two MDC factions were to reunite – if I was being picky, I’d point out that it’s hardly ‘historic’ to return to the party’s starting point, but it’s significant in that it gives the MDC an overall majority in the House of Assembly (technically, while the two MDC factions were separate it was a hung house) and evens up the numbers in the Senate. It also presents a united front to Zanu-PF.

A few other key points from the joint press conference given by the two faction leaders:
- MDC would form a government of national unity and this may include former Zanu-PF candidates and independent candidate Simba Makoni;
- the two of them were speaking out against violence – they issued a request to stop violence, and relayed the message to Mugabe that these are crimes against humanity;
- regarding the election ‘count fight’ between ZEC and Zanu PF: MT will raise disputes if the results don’t tally with theirs;
- MDC are working for the peaceful transfer of power and putting national interests ahead of personal interests; and
- there will be no run-off – “the people have spoken”.

I had been hoping the press conference, which was called on very short notice, would be related to the Presidential poll results, but sadly not. Back to the waiting game.

Here we go… ZEC’s count is complete and the parties have been called to compare that result against their own data, according to New Zimbabwe, while Morgan Tsvangirai has called a press conference for 4pm South African time (meaning it should be underway as I type this) to make “an historic announcement”.

ZEC’s announcement:

“We trust that by Monday, April 28 this process will have been concluded… leading to the announcement of the result of the presidential election,” ZEC chairman George Chiweshe told reporters in Harare.

Chiweshe said the presidential candidates or their agents are expected to meet this week to compare results they will have gathered at each polling station.

“I don’t know whether they are going to bring the same figures and everybody is going to agree from the word go, or whether they will (bring) various figures which need to be looked into and checked and argued about,” Chiweshe said.

“But I can’t say exactly when the results will be coming,” he added.

I wonder if this is finally it.

No such thing as a quiet Friday. BBC News reports that China has finally accepted defeat and recalled the An Yue Jiang (although This is Zimbabwe are still reporting it due in Angola today) – they’re labelling the decision “victory for civic society”:

Rights groups hailed the move as a major victory, a triumph of public opinion over political cynicism. It seems civil society is taking the lead, well ahead of national leaders, on the question of Zimbabwe.

In a rare show of force, African public opinion and civil organisations mobilised on a single issue to force action that politicians seemed reluctant to take.

Peter Alexander, the director for Sociological Studies at the University of Johannesburg, says the ship’s departure was a triumph for civil society: “I am amazed,” he said. “It is very impressive that such a concerted action could have such a concrete result.”

Nicole Fritz, of the Southern African Litigation Centre, which took the case to court, agrees: “The South African authorities have been driven by embarrassment in the face of what civil society has done.”

The An Yue Jiang affair is probably the clearest example of African civil society leading the agenda on Zimbabwe.

And for that, everyone involved can be proud.

Of course, things are still going on that people can be less proud of. The MDC’s Harare offices were raided again this morning, leading to the arrests of over 300 people including people from rural areas who were using the offices as a refuge – more details at New Zimbabwe, who are also reporting that the election recount in Zvimba North conveniently turned up a number of ballot boxes that hadn’t been included the first time around – apparently one polling station was overlooked. The additional votes weren’t enough to overturn the result though, and both the House of Assembly and Senate were retained by Zanu-PF (over the original results, the HoA vote was Zanu-PF +155, MDC/T +13, MDC/M -28; for the Senate, Zanu-PF +261, MDC/T +295)

So far, all the recounts that I’m aware of being completed have resulted in no change – a few votes either way, but not enough to affect the outcome. That’s Zaka West, Gutu East, West & Central (all MDC) and Goromonzi West (Zanu-PF). Notable, though, was a speech given at the Gutu recounts by the losing Zanu-PF senate candidate, General Vitalis Zvinavashe, reported by New Zimbabwe:

“There is no need to fight over these results. We must accept the reality that we have lost these elections to the MDC. What is important is to live together in peace, both losers and winners. We do not want violence in this area. We are relatives.

“Most of us lost these elections not because we are not popular in our constituencies. We lost these harmonised elections because of one man. People rejected us because we were campaigning for Mugabe. People in Masvingo have rejected him and we became collateral damage. There is no reason to fight with the MDC over this election. The real problem is that man not us.”

If that’s accurate reporting, then change certainly seems to be in the air. I wonder if what we’re seeing, with this and the Herald’s piece yesterday, is a more level-headed faction within Zanu-PF beginning to reclaim the high ground. We’ll see over the next few weeks.

In the meantime, ZEC have apparently announced that the Presidential results will be announced this weekend. Only 4 weeks late, then – but earlier than some were expecting.

There’s an interesting comment piece in today’s Herald and picked up on by the BBC that, while indulging in the usual bashing of the West, would suggest that Zanu-PF may be beginning to realise that they can’t completely steal this election. On the assumption that the Herald is the State mouthpiece and won’t publish anything without at least tacit approval from Zanu-PF, then the following extracts raise some interesting points:

Indeed the Zimbabwean situation is “dire”, but not all is lost. Zimbabwe and Africa and the progressive international community can turn it around.

[...]

Accordingly, the most viable and safest way forward is for the Sadc to mediate negotiations for a transitional government of national unity, which will:

(a) Call on the international community to compel Europe and the US to urgently lift their economic sanctions on Zimbabwe.
(b) Write, with the assistance of experienced Sadc members and the international community, a new constitution for Zimbabwe which will be adopted only after a national referendum.
(c) In collaboration with SADC and invited members of the international community, organise fresh free and fair elections.

2) The Zimbabwe Government and independent international observers are agreed that the just-ended harmonised elections did not produce an outright winner in the presidential race. It is unlikely that the on-going recount will substantively alter that position.

Accordingly, it stands to reason that, the transitional government of national unity, negotiated by the two leading contending parties, under the mediation of Sadc, supported by the international community, should be led by the incumbent president.

“Dire” situation? “Transitional” government of “national unity”? And talk of both from the Herald? Reality must really be beginning to sink in. But wait, it gets better:

The peace and security of Zimbabwe, that it has enjoyed since independence, is at great risk. Whilst the ruling party must stop behaving like a wounded buffalo, the opposition party must stop its hysterics and lapses into delusion.

The ruling party, as the senior and more experienced organisation, both nationally and internationally, needs to show greater self-restraint and maturity, irrespective of how much it might feel justifiably angered by developments in the last few weeks.

Amongst themselves, there will be no harm in Zanu-PF leaders making a candid introspection of themselves, noting past problems and challenges, and rising to counter them with greater determination.

The party should allow MDC-T, now in virtual exile, to return home and freely negotiate its participation in a Sadc-mediated process that should lead to the establishment a transitional government of national unity…

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such strong criticism of Zanu-PF from the state media. The article suggests that Mugabe should be President in any GNU, of course, and doesn’t hold back on criticising the MDC’s recent public proclamations (calling them “hysterics” and “hallucinations”, while also admitting that… “they have already invested substantially in a future stable Zimbabwe for themselves and their children”), but I don’t think the significance of the piece should be ignored.

If the article is a feeler for a settlement, then it’s up to both sides to see what can be done to explore the possibility. I just fear that enough harm has been done on the ground, thanks to recent violence, that there may be no bringing Zanu-PF and the MDC together.

The Herald’s website doesn’t archive their articles, but you can find the full piece at AllAfrica.

The Institue for Democracy in South Africa has a report on the counting delays – they’ve done some poring over the relevant legislation, and they’re not buying ZEC’s excuses. You can get the full report from their website [PDF document] and they do go into some detail, but if you’re remotely interested in the legalities of the count, then it’s well worth a read. Thanks to This is Zimbabwe for the link.

You couldn’t make it up. Moses Moyo over at Zimbabwe Today claims to have a reliable source within ZEC, who has been keeping him informed of the progress of the weekend’s (illegal) recounts, and makes this report:

…the recounts of both votes, which are unjustified and quite possibly illegal, began on Saturday – and by halfway through the afternoon it became quite clear to the Zanu-PF officials in attendance that those doing the counting had mis-counted yet again.

There were the piles of votes. The recounts of 16 parliamentary constituencies had been completed. Each had originally been won by the MDC. Each, in the recount, had also been won by the MDC – in some cases, by an even greater majority than before.

The Presidential election recount was also proceeding on schedule. The original count gave MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai a clear and conclusive lead over President Robert Mugabe of Zanu-PF. And the recount? Yes, it was showing very much the same result.

At this point the Zanu-PF officials stepped in, to demand that the recount be recounted, and, weak-kneed as ever, the ZEC people agreed. And the counting began all over again. And is still going on. And on and on.

So the situation seems to be “keep counting until you get the result we tell you to”. It’s no wonder Zanu-PF have left Zimbabwe’s economy in the situation that it’s in, when they quite clearly can’t even rig an election properly. I’d be laughing if it wasn’t such a tragic and dangerous situation…

At a press conference in Jo’burg on Sunday, the MDC’s Tendai Biti termed the situation in Zimbabwe “war” and urged African leaders and the UN to intervene – the death toll amongst MDC supporters no stands at 10, with “hundreds” injured after reprisal beatings and “thousands” displaced, trying to avoid the violence. Never mind large numbers that have been arrested. The situation that they paint is one of a country sliding towards civil war, with the party trying hard to keep a lid on the rising frustrations amongst its supporters but aware that the longer the current uncertainty continues, the more likely it’ll be that there’ll be a response to Zanu-PF’s violence. Reports from other sources seem to indicate that may not be far away either, with tensions in the townships already high.

A violent response would, of course, allow Mugabe to wriggle out of the election in other ways, and is probably just what he’s hoping will happen. If that fails, the Zimbabwe Today has details of a possible Plan B that would see the Presidential vote re-run from scratch.

In the meantime, the “re-count” of some constituency votes continues, with ZEC claiming it will take a few days to complete – remember, these counts were all completed within a few days after polling closed, so if that’s a genuine excuse then the ZEC are criminally incompetent – and since the High Court ordered a few days ago that the recounts should not proceed, they’re engaging in criminal activity of another kind.

In the meantime, calls for action are growing louder – former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan joined the chorus on Saturday, and current SG Ban Ki-Moon is planning to raise the issue at a UN summit in Ghana this week. But if African leaders have so far managed to fiddle while Zimbabwe burns, what are the chances of any of them stepping up to the plate now?

Rather than repeat what others have already dug up about the Chinese arms shipment, here’s a link to Sokwanele’s consolidated post on the issue – it has details of the current situation and will be regularly updated with news as the get it.