Zimbabwe votes : Situation analysis


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Flag of Zimbabwe
Flag of Zimbabwe

Generally on polling day there where no major incidents of violance reported country wide.

But a house of a Zimbabwean ruling party parliamentary candidate in Bulawayo, the second largest city was bombed early on Saturday in the first violence in the country’s election.

Chief police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said a bomb had exploded in a house belonging to a ZANU-PF candidate.

“Early this morning a house in Emakhandeni…constituency was bombed. We have since retrieved explosive devices … no arrests have been made as yet and no one was injured,” Bvudzijena said.

Situation analysis

* Voting in presidential, parliamentary and local government elections where held on Saturday (March 29). The day was declared a public holiday.

* The 8,998 polling stations opened at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m.

* Zimbabwe has a total of 5,934,768 registered voters from a population
estimated at over 13 million.

* At stake in the parliamentary election are 210 House of Assembly seats and 60 seats in the Senate, the upper house.

* Vote counting started immediately after polls close. Parliamentary results will be announced in constituency centres and the presidential result in the capital Harare.

* The main election observer mission is from the Southern African Development Community. Monitors from Western countries critical of Mugabe were barred.

* The winner needs more than 51 percent in the presidential election to avoid a run-off.

* President Robert Mugabe got 56 percent in the last election in 2002. Main rival Morgan Tsvangirai got 42 percent then.

* In the 2005 parliamentary election, Mugabe’s ruling Zanu PF won 78 of 120 contested seats while Tsvangirai’s MDC won 41 seats. One seat went to an independent.

From our correspondent in Harare

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