Words steaming off the press

“For a state president to describe a ruling by a competent court of law as ‘madness’ is not only outright contempt of court but an indecent assault on the judiciary.” — Movement for Democratic Change’s Tendai Biti on President Robert Mugabe’s response to the electoral court ruling that a jailed MDC MP could contest the poll.

“Protests and expressions of dissatisfaction are also likely to be met with increased government-sponsored violence.” — Brian Kagoro, of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, on the election outcome.

Chronicle (state-owned): “Suspected MDC hooligans allegedly destroyed tombstones and pasted the party’s election campaign posters at the Gokwe South district heroes’ acre last week … The same party, which is claiming that the idea to redistribute the land was stolen from it by Zanu-PF is making an undertaking to give back the same land to the whites once it is voted into power.” — Commentary.

The Financial Gazette (semi- independent): “We never thought these media briefings could be misconstrued or distorted as what is being portrayed in some sections of the media. By hosting these media briefings, we are being accused of propping up Zanu-PF or the government when we observe that the situation is overwhelmingly peaceful on the ground. They would like us to join them in coining fiction and to see shadows where there are no shadows.” — Senior assistant commissioner Mary Masango.

The Herald (state-owned): “We will obviously not take them as election observers since their country is not on the list of invited foreign observers. Theirs would just be taken as a routine one since they have already been doing that. Zimbabwe and the US have not severed ties despite the strained relationship and that is why their embassy is still here” — Foreign Affairs spokesperson Parvelyn Musaka, commenting on a United States delegation visit to assess the pre-election period.

Poll watch

More than three million Zimbabweans living abroad will not be able to vote in the elections after the Supreme Court dismissed a challenge to a law barring them from voting.

Zimbabwe’s new Electoral Court has ordered that jailed opposition MP Roy Bennett can stand for re-election in the upcoming poll. It also postponed the election in Bennett’s eastern Chimanimani constituency to give his team time to campaign. The government is set to appeal.

Police arrested and later released National Constitutional Assembly chairperson Lovemore Madhuku over a report that cited flaws in the electoral process and voter intimidation.

The government said it would not allow the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions to monitor the elections, saying that it is an agent of Britain.

For the first time since independence, Zanu-PF has fielded four relatives of Robert Mugabe to contest seats.

Harare police have arrested five youths alleged to be trained MDC “hit-men” who were planning violence to destabilise the elections. The MDC has denied the allegations, saying it is an attempt to discredit them.

South African observer mission member Ngoako Ramatlhodi has apologised to the MDC for labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana’s statements that the elections would be free and fair. Ramatlhodi said Mdladlana was not speaking on their behalf.

A coalition of human rights groups in Nigeria and Zimbabwe has appealed to Nigerian President and chairperson of the African Union Olusegun Obasanjo, “to call publicly on the government of Zimbabwe to implement in full the recommendations made by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in the report of its 2002 fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe.”