A senior Zimbabwean opposition politician was briefly arrested while trying to cross into Zambia, his lawyers said on Wednesday, as concerns rose over a government crackdown after last week’s disputed presidential election.
Tendai Biti, who was finance minister in an uneasy coalition government from 2009 to 2013, is a leading member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.
His brief arrest, which followed scenes of the military opening fire in the streets of the capital and growing opposition claims of harassment, further challenged the Zimbabwean president’s assertions of a “flowering” of democracy in the months after long-time leader Robert Mugabe stepped down under military pressure.
A lawyer for Mr Biti, Denford Halimani, said details were not immediately clear on the circumstances around his release but he confirmed that he was on Zambian soil and was seeking asylum “on an urgent basis”.
The MDC has denounced the election win of President Emmerson Mnangagwa as fraudulent and vowed to challenge it in court this week.
Last week Mr Biti declared, before official election results were announced early on Friday, that opposition leader Nelson Chamisa had won, “In a normal country Chamisa would be sworn in right now,” Mr Biti told reporters a day after the election.
Mr Chamisa also declared victory.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has said it is illegal to announce results before its own official announcement.
Mr Mnangagwa was more restrained during the vote count, saying only that the situation looked positive. However, some reporting in state-run media declared him the winner before the official results were out.
Court challenge
The opposition has seven days from the announcement of the official election results to file a court challenge.
Mr Chamisa’s lawyer Thabani Mpofu told reporters on Wednesday they will file the challenge in time. That would push back an inauguration that Mr Mnangagwa’s administration has planned for Sunday.
Mr Biti was named along with Mr Chamisa in a search warrant issued last week that said they and several others were suspected of the crimes of “possession of dangerous weapons” and “subversive material” as well as “public violence”, according to a copy of the warrant seen by the Associated Press.
Police raided the opposition party headquarters a day after the military rolled into the capital, Harare, and dispersed protesting opposition supporters with gunfire.
The supporters were angry over the announcement that the ruling party had won a majority of seats in parliament and some were rioting. Six people were killed, including a woman vendor who was shot in the back.
“We condemn the murders of compatriots,” Mr Biti said on Twitter that day. “We call for restraint.” He had made no public comment since. – AP