HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabweans cast ballots Saturday with a mix of hope and dread, many longing to end the 28-year reign of President Robert Mugabe but fearful that no matter how they vote, he will declare himself the winner.
Lines formed before dawn and were long throughout the day in urban opposition strongholds. Dozens of voters at some polling stations discovered they had been struck from official rolls. Though the election proceeded mostly peacefully, such logistical barriers are among the many tools Mugabe’s opponents say he has to skew the results, which are expected to be announced in the next few days.
“I’m fed up with the way things are in Zimbabwe,” said Abigail Magombedze, 26, an unemployed woman whose name was missing from the voter list in Chitungwiza, a bedroom community south of Harare, the capital. “This doesn’t surprise me because these guys have always been rigging.”
The expectation of manipulation so infuses discussion of this election that debate has turned to how voters will react if results show that Mugabe has won yet again despite a decade-long national collapse so complete that schools lack teachers, stores lack food and the few still with jobs lack bus fare to work. Many Zimbabweans insist that the official inflation rate of 100,000 percent is an underestimate.
The legions of supporters of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai have sorted themselves into two categories: those who are preparing to swallow election results they don’t believe, and those who are planning to resist. The past few days have featured bold pronouncements that major street protests, all but unprecedented here, will materialize. Tsvangirai has urged voters to mass at the 9,000 polling stations across the nation to “protect our votes.”
“The people’s victory is assured despite the attempts of the regime to subvert the people’s will,” Tsvangirai told reporters after casting his ballot.
But a University of Zimbabwe political analyst, Eldred Masunungure, said his study of the national political culture shows that voters are strongly disinclined to challenge Mugabe, who has made clear his willingness to use the police, military and intelligence services to crush dissent. Over the past two days, officers have been posted at urban intersections and countless highway roadblocks in this country of 12 million.
Masunungure said that an overwhelming turnout by the opposition might persuade Mugabe and his inner circle to step aside. But if they don’t, he said, Tsvangirai and his supporters have few options.
“People will be frustrated. There will be a sense of foreboding, and a sense of helplessness,” Masunungure said. “But that sense of helplessness will not be translated into political action. … I don’t think so.”
Yet some opposition figures have warned that a rigged outcome — coming off widely denounced elections in 2000, 2002 and 2005 — would tip the nation into violence resembling the slaughter in Kenya after that nation’s flawed presidential election in December. Police reported Saturday that a gasoline bomb was found at the home of a ruling party legislator in Bulawayo, an opposition stronghold, suggesting that tensions are not far from the surface. There were no injuries.
“We should do something about Mugabe,” said Tsvangirai supporter Robert Wilson, 35, a former truck driver, in the town of Marondera, about 45 miles east of Harare. “If Mugabe wins, there will be civil war like the Kenya one.”
Former Mugabe finance minister Simba Makoni, who defected from the ruling party in February to run for president, has been joining Tsvangirai’s warnings in recent days that Mugabe, 84, intends to steal his way to another term in office.
Mugabe has repeatedly denied the allegations.
“We don’t rig elections. We have a sense of honesty. I cannot sleep with my conscience if I have cheated,” Mugabe told reporters Saturday.
Mugabe’s supporters expressed confidence in the fairness of the electoral system and predicted he would win fairly. They blamed Zimbabwe’s economic troubles on U.S. and European sanctions rather than government economic mismanagement
“We have faith in him,” said Bigknock Marikopo, 55, a farmer. “You can’t blame your father because he’s poor.”
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