Zimbabwe’s Political Crisis Deepens After Disputed Election

• By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA AND FARAI MUTSAKA, ASSOCIATED PRESS

The rul­ing par­ty and the main oppo­si­tion group both declared Thursday they won Zimbabwe’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion ahead of an immi­nent announce­ment of the offi­cial result, deep­en­ing a polit­i­cal cri­sis that was wors­ened by dead­ly riot­ing in the capital.

The death toll from street clash­es Wednesday rose to six, with 14 injured, police said, and 18 peo­ple were arrest­ed at the offices of the main oppo­si­tion par­ty amid ten­sions over a vote that was sup­posed to restore trust in Zimbabwe after decades of rule by Robert Mugabe.

There were con­flict­ing accounts of who was respon­si­ble for the blood­shed in the cap­i­tal of Harare, which fol­lowed oppo­si­tion protests of alleged vote-rig­ging. Police tried to dis­perse angry crowds with tear gas and water can­nons, and then sol­diers fired live rounds.

While the mil­i­tary has been crit­i­cized for the crack­down, police spokes­woman Charity Charamba blamed riot­ers, say­ing some were drunk and that they destroyed eight cars and 22 shops. About 4,000 oppo­si­tion sup­port­ers, some car­ry­ing iron bars and stones, were “besieg­ing” down­town Harare, she said.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his rul­ing ZANU-PF par­ty also accused the oppo­si­tion of incit­ing the vio­lence. The oppo­si­tion, human rights activists and inter­na­tion­al elec­tion observers con­demned the “exces­sive” force used against pro­test­ers and appealed to all sides to exer­cise restraint.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said it will start announc­ing results of Monday’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion at 10 p.m. (2000 GMT, 4 p.m. EDT), though by law it has five days to deliv­er the final tal­ly. It has some­times giv­en con­flict­ing state­ments about when it is releas­ing information.

International elec­tion observers urged the com­mis­sion to reveal the pres­i­den­tial results as soon as pos­si­ble, say­ing delays will increase spec­u­la­tion about vote-rigging.

Meanwhile, police raid­ed the Movement for Democratic Change par­ty head­quar­ters of the main oppo­si­tion can­di­date, Nelson Chamisa. A lawyers’ group said he was being inves­ti­gat­ed by police for alleged­ly incit­ing violence.

Chamisa, oppo­si­tion politi­cian Tendai Biti and sev­er­al oth­ers are sus­pect­ed of the crimes of “pos­ses­sion of dan­ger­ous weapons” and “pub­lic vio­lence,” accord­ing to a copy of a search war­rant, which was seen by The Associated Press. The war­rant autho­rizes police to search for and con­fis­cate any evi­dence as part of their investigation.

The authen­tic­i­ty of the war­rant was con­firmed by Kumbirai Mafunda, a spokesman for Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights.

Chamisa, how­ev­er, said the police who raid­ed his head­quar­ters and seized com­put­ers were look­ing for what he called evi­dence of vote-rig­ging. The evi­dence already had been moved to a “safe house,” he said.

Opposition demon­stra­tions had bro­ken out after elec­toral offi­cials said the rul­ing par­ty had won a par­lia­men­tary major­i­ty in the elec­tions, and Paul Mangwana, a ZANU-PF spokesman, told a news con­fer­ence he antic­i­pat­ed sim­i­lar suc­cess in the pres­i­den­tial race.

Elsewhere in Harare, Chamisa said he was con­fi­dent that his MDC par­ty would be form­ing the next government.

As the rival camps sparred over the out­come, they also appealed for calm. Mnangagwa said his gov­ern­ment was in touch with Chamisa to try to ease ten­sions, although the oppo­si­tion leader said he had not received any communication.

During the 37-year rule by Mugabe, who resigned in November under mil­i­tary pres­sure, elec­tions were marked by vio­lence against the oppo­si­tion and alleged fraud, and inter­na­tion­al sanc­tions were imposed on Zimbabwe as a result. A cred­i­ble vote is cru­cial to the lift­ing of the sanc­tions so that the col­lapsed econ­o­my can recover.

Monday’s bal­lot­ing was called free and fair by the elec­toral commission.

The European Union observ­er mis­sion expressed “seri­ous con­cerns” as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Western and oth­er groups gave their first assess­ments of the election.

Former Liberian leader Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the lead observ­er of a U.S. mon­i­tor­ing mis­sion, also had expressed con­cern about delays in announc­ing results, say­ing that the longer it went on, “the more it calls into ques­tion the pop­u­la­tion’s con­fi­dence in the elec­tion process.”

Mnangagwa, who is close to the mil­i­tary, called for an “inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion” into the riots, say­ing those respon­si­ble “should be iden­ti­fied and brought to justice.”

The mil­i­tary deploy­ment was the first time that sol­diers had appeared in the streets of the cap­i­tal since Mugabe’s res­ig­na­tion. At that time, thou­sands of jubi­lant res­i­dents wel­comed their presence.

Some Harare res­i­dents expressed frus­tra­tion and exhaus­tion at the violence.

“We are a peace­ful nation,” said 29-year-old Sifas Gavanga. “We don’t deserve the death we saw.” https://​abc​news​.go​.com/​I​n​t​e​r​n​a​t​i​o​n​a​l​/​w​i​r​e​S​t​o​r​y​/​z​i​m​b​a​b​w​e​a​n​-​l​e​a​d​e​r​-​a​p​p​e​a​l​s​-​c​a​l​m​-​e​l​e​c​t​i​o​n​-​v​i​o​l​e​n​c​e​-​5​6​9​8​2​920