HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe’s main opposition party said Saturday that it feared its parliamentary election victory was being stolen, while former U.N. chief Kofi Annan urged African leaders to step in and resolve the election crisis.
Zimbabweans are still awaiting results of the presidential election held three weeks ago alongside parliamentary voting. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai claims he won outright and that the delay in reporting results is part of a fraud plot.
Now the opposition’s victory in the parliamentary vote is being called into question. Electoral officials on Saturday began recounting ballots for nearly two dozen legislative seats, which could overturn the Zimbabwean opposition’s landmark majority win in the parliamentary poll.
Most of the seats being recounted had been declared for opposition candidates.
State-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corp. reported the recount would take as many as three days.
New York-based Human Rights Watch charged Saturday that “torture and violence are surging in Zimbabwe,” citing victims and eyewitnesses. It said the ruling party was setting up “torture camps to systematically target, beat and torture people suspected of having voted for the MDC in last month’s elections.” But President Robert Mugabe has accused others of plotting violence.
Annan, the former U.N. secretary-general from Ghana who helped broker a peace deal after contested elections in Kenya, questioned whether leaders on the continent have done enough to help find a solution in Zimbabwe.
“Where are the Africans? Where are the leaders and the countries in the region? What are they doing? How can they help resolve the situation? It is a rather dangerous situation,” Annan told journalists in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
