ZIMBABWE: Mugabe's government conceded an extra day of polling yesterday but moved to frustrate voters. likely to support the opposition.City polling booths opened at midday - five hours later than specified in an emergency High Court order - while gangs of roaming youth militia attacked voter queues in some neighbourhoods, reports Declan Walsh from Harare
The chaotic scenes sent the opposition challenger, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, back to court in search of another order to extend polling into a fourth day. Last night the High Court rejected the application.
Earlier, Mr Tsvangirai suffered a second blow when police arrested two senior officials of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party including the secretary-general, Mr Welshman Ncube.
Police also detained four American embassy officials for four hours. They were returning from an election-monitoring mission. An embassy official described the incident as a "clear violation of diplomatic conventions". The government had reduced the number of polling stations in Harare, an opposition stronghold, by 30 per cent. But despite the obstacles tens of thousands of determined voters gathered outside overburdened polling stations for the third day running.
Shopkeeper Abisha Chiware was among those queueing in Highfield township waiting for his turn to vote against Mr Mugabe. He waited all day on Saturday, until eleven on Sunday, and by lunchtime yesterday he was just 150 people from the end.
"This is the time of realisation and reckoning. It is a period of awakening for everybody," he said. The electrical wholesaler had shut his business for the day to allow his employees to vote.
The sense of optimism in Highfield was tempered by an air of menace. Hours earlier a gang of Zanu-PF youths had attacked the waiting crowd. "They said 'Why are you queuing? The election is over since yesterday. Go home'," said Mr Kuda Madzima.
Voters fled but returned to re-form the queue after riot police intervened, he said. By early afternoon polling had resumed at a brisk pace and the gates of the school where the militia had set up a base - plastered with posters of a fist-shaking President Mugabe - remained closed.
Just under half of the nation's 5.6 million registered voters had cast their ballots by Sunday night, the official end of the two-day polling.
Voting was extended into a third day on Sunday night after the MDC won an emergency court order. The Information Minister, Mr Jonathan Moyo, described the order as "disgraceful". The election result was likely by noon tomorrow, he said.
A grave-looking Mr Tsvangirai warned Zimbabweans in a morning press conference against "the forces of darkness" and said he feared he may be killed.
He counselled voters against violence as they waited for the poll result.
"Do not succumb to their provocative traps. I know they are trying very hard to provoke you," he said.
By evening the MDC confirmed that Mr Ncube had been arrested in the south-western town of Plumtree, while his deputy, Mr Gift Chimanikire, was detained in Harare.
Mr Ncube already faces treason charges for allegedly plotting with Mr Tsvangirai to assassinate President Mugabe.
Further reports of state-sponsored violence, intimidation and apparent vote rigging continued to arrive in the office of the Zimbabwean Human Rights group, a non-partisan organisation monitoring the weekend poll.
It reported that helicopters had been seen flying ballot boxes in and out of Gokwe North, while in one Bulawayo polling station 92 per cent of voters were turned away even though their names were on the official voters register.