Zimbabwe to hold one-candidate presidential runoff on Friday

(SomaliNet) With President Robert Mugabe expected to scheme a mass turnout of voters in a show of strength designed to emphasize his hold on power, Zimbabwe is set to hold its one-candidate presidential runoff on Friday.

However, world leaders have dismissed the runoff as a shame and Nigeria became the latest African nation to call for its postponement, but electoral officials say the election will go ahead with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai\'s name on the ballot.

Mugabe sounded a conciliatory note when he said Thursday that he was \"open to discussion\" with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

Mugabe, who spoke at a campaign rally on Thursday, until then showed little interest in talks and his government had scoffed at Tsvangirai\'s call on Wednesday to work together to form a transitional authority.

Tsvangirai, the only candidate facing Mugabe in the runoff, announced Sunday he was withdrawing from Friday\'s vote because state-sponsored violence against his party had made it impossible to run. He then fled to the Dutch embassy for safety.

Tsvangirai told the BBC World Service that voters would be frog-marched to the polls.

\"There could be a massive turnout, not because of the will of the people but because of the role of the military and the traditional leaders to force people to these polls,\" he said in an interview from the embassy.

He told his supporters not to offer resistance, for their own safety.

\"They should go. If they even vote for ZANU-PF, if they even vote for Mugabe, what does that change?\" he said in the BBC interview. \"It makes no difference because the vote is a fraud anyway.\"

Mugabe\'s last campaign stop was in Chitungwiza, an area that has seen some of the most brutal violence against the opposition.

Earlier this month, the opposition said four activists were abducted in the region, assaulted with iron bars, clubs and guns. Their bodies were found a day later. In a separate incident, the homes of three Chitungwiza opposition councilmen and their families were firebombed Wednesday night, but everyone escaped uninjured.

That made it a curious choice of a place to offer an olive branch, and could signal that while Mugabe is open to talks, he is not necessarily in a conciliatory mood.

Mugabe was proposing talks only after the vote, when he will point to a landslide victory and claim to be in a position of strength.

Mugabe told the rally\'s crowd that he would be going to Egypt, where African Union heads of state were meeting Monday. Mugabe presumably planned to attend as a victorious re-elected president.

Bright Matonga, Mugabe\'s deputy information minister, said the call for talks was directed at the opposition as fellow Zimbabweans.

\"We want you to be part of Zimbabwe, we are willing to talk to you, but let\'s finish this first,\" Matonga said.
On the eve of the vote, fear settled over the capital, as if the city was under occupation.

Businesses and factories closed down around noon. Most schools had been shut since Monday, with parents called by teachers to collect their children because there were \"strangers\" camped in vacant land who were said to be Mugabe militants.

Trees and lamp posts across Harare were plastered with fresh Mugabe election posters. A few posters of Tsvangirai from the first March 29 round of voting were defaced and torn, some with his eyes gouged out.

In grasslands and wooded areas, militants have set up camps used for political meetings in recent days.
Peter Nyirenda, owner of a small clothing store in eastern Harare, said he closed his doors Tuesday because militants were camped nearby.

\"It\'s not safe,\" he said.

In a main parking lot for buses in downtown Harare, most minivan taxis and buses were also plastered with Mugabe stickers, fliers, posters, flags and bandannas.

Several drivers said militants ordered them to bedeck their vehicles with Mugabe campaign fliers or they would be forced to stop plying their routes. Many private cars also carried Mugabe stickers and fliers.

Ruling party pickup trucks laden with youths wearing T-shirts and Mugabe campaign scarves roamed downtown. Some shops locked down their shutters.

Witnesses in areas surrounding the capital said army troops and police were patrolling and militants ordered market stalls and bars to close by dusk.

In well-to-do suburbs, sporting clubs and restaurants reported receiving warnings they too should to close by early evening.

Kubatana, a Web site forum for independent Zimbabwean human rights groups, said Mugabe supporters were manning illegal roadblocks on main streets and highways where police were not present.

Witnesses reported nine checkpoints on a 200 kilometer (120 mile) stretch of highway from the eastern city of Mutare, five of them manned only by militants.-Agencies