Zimbabwe: Vote counting continues amid claims of rigging

voters in long cues

Vote counting and tallying by Zimbabwe’s electoral commission (ZEC) has entered the second day following Tuesday’s polls. Zim citizens yesterday voted in the country’s general election following the recent referendum which introduced presidential term limits.

Tuesday’s polls have been described as having been peaceful but largely compromised according to monitors. Morgan Tsvangirai, Mugabe’s challenger called the elections a "huge farce", just a day after his attempt to dislodge President Robert Mugabe from power.

The Movement for Democratic Change boss already cried foul on Thursday during a press conference saying that the election had been heavily manipulated and was below standards by any scale. Tsvangirai said "The shoddy manner in which it has been conducted and the consequent illegitimacy of the result will plunge this country into a serious crisis,”

"Its credibility has been marred by administrative and legal violations which affect the legitimacy of its outcome. It is a sham election that does not reflect the will of the people." He added.

Zimbabwe Election Support Network said on Thursday that Up to 1 million people was denied chance to vote due to their names missing from the register.

The spokesman for the Zanu-PF Rugare Gumbo, has however, dismissed claims of sham poll. He described the Zimbabwe Election Support Network as British and America’s sycophants. He asked "What do you expect from the Zimbabwe Election Support Network anyway?

"They are sponsored by the Americans and the British to destabilize our elections. As you could see for yourself yesterday's election was peaceful," Mr. Rugare said.

About information on Zanu PF twitter account claiming landslide victory in Wednesday's election, Gumbo said results were not official and that they were awaiting official results from ZEC who have the mandate to release electoral results by law. He further said "I am the national party spokesperson and I haven't said anything about election results. It's all hogwash”. "If it doesn't come out of my mouth, it is not credible." He added.

Another official from Zanu FP who did not want to reveal his identity said that Morgan Tsvangirai’s movement for Democratic change should accept the will of the people. He added that those were kicks of a dying horse and that MDC had been buried.