POLITICAL CRISIS: Zimbabwe's President, Robert Mugabe, refuses to release results from the presidential election held 12 days ago. International pressure mounts on Mugabe to release the results and respect the outcome. They fear Mugabe will tamper with the results, and the country will erupt into violence.

Who Won Zimbabwe's Presidential Election?

Mugabe's government claims that election officials are still counting ballots and verifying results. So far, the national courts have not ordered the government to release the results. A lawyer for the government said yesterday that premature release of the results could lead to political violence, and President Mugabe may continue to withhold the results even if court-ordered to release them.

The opposition party known as Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) claims its candidate - Morgan Tsvangirai - won the presidential election. MDC rejects Mugabe's call for a runoff election, saying the government is intentionally delaying the release of election results. Why? To tamper with the results and steal the election. But the government and several independent groups counter that MDC did not win enough votes to win the election, and therefore cannot dispute a runoff. The government claims that a runoff is necessary to determine the winner of the presidential election.

Zimbabwe Struggles with Starvation and Inflation

The current political crisis in Zimbabwe complicates already-existing economic and humanitarian problems there:

• Unemployment hovers near 80%
• Nearly 4 million Zimbabweans suffer from hunger
• Current annual rate of inflation is more than 100,000%. This means that a loaf of bread that cost $1 at the beginning of the year would cost close to $200 by the end of the year.

International groups continue to closely follow events in Zimbabwe, fearing that the current political crisis could escalate and erupt in widespread violence.

International Pressure on Mugabe

Zimbabwe belongs to the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a group of 14 countries in the south part of Africa. Today President Mwanawasa of Zambia, an SADC member country, called an emergency meeting of the SADC leaders to address the political crisis in Zimbabwe. So far, other southern African leaders have been slow to criticize Mugabe's rule in Zimbabwe. Mugabe plans to attend the meeting on Saturday.

U.S. President George Bush said yesterday that Zimbabwe's election commission must release the election results "as soon as possible" in order for the election to have any credibility.

Sources

- "Regional Leaders to Meet on Zimbabwe" (NY TIMES)

- "Zimbabwe rivals to attend summit" (BBC)

- "Zimbabwe" (Wikipedia)

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Question for our readers:

Is there ever a time when the government should withold election results?