Miliband Hits Out at Mugabe's Election 'charade'

Foreign secretary David Miliband today dismissed the recount currently under way in Zimbabwe and accused Mugabe of "beating his own people to death" to ensure he retains power.

"No one can have any faith in this recount", Miliband said in a written statement put down in the House of Commons this afternoon. He called the recount a "charade of democracy".

"The ballot boxes have been kept in uncertain conditions. The Electoral Commission has seen 13 of their number arrested in a clear effort to threaten and punish those who did their job independently".

In the statement, Miliband said "ordinary Africans do not condone the way in which President Mugabe is clinging to power and beating his own people to death to ensure he retains it". He also reiterated Gordon Brown's belief, aired in his speech to the UN last week, that Mugabe was attempting to '"steal the elections".

The dismal view of the recount held by the British government will have been bolstered by a South African observer's allegations made this morning that the recount is "fatally flawed".

Dianne Kohler Barnard, an MP from South Africa's opposition Democratic Alliance, said she saw clear evidence that a number of ballot boxes had been tampered with and that the entire recounting process was "futile".

Barnard's critical comments of the recounting process as the state-run Herald newspaper reported that the recount could take all week instead of three days, as originally envisaged.

According to the Herald, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said it needed more time because of the amount of work involved.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDF) defeated the ruling Zanu-PF party in the first count of the March 29 vote. But Zanu-PF could regain a majority in the parliament it has controlled for 28 years if it wins at least nine seats in the recount.

The opposition movement has denounced the recount as illegal, while results of the presidential election have still not been announced.

As the recount drags on, the MDC appealed for international intervention to stop a government crackdown against its supporters.

Tendai Biti, secretary general of the MDC, said as a result of post-election violence, 10 people had been killed, 3,000 families forced out of their homes and hundreds of people hospitalised with injuries. He also said key opposition members had been arrested, along with more than 400 supporters.

"We are not able to function because of those arrests," he said. Biti and the MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, say they cannot return to Zimbabwe as they face immediate arrest.

Gordon Brown will hold talks with Jacob Zuma, the head of South Africa's African National Congress, on Wednesday, Downing Street said today.

Brown's office said Zuma, who is in line to become South Africa's next president, is in London for meetings with MPs and officials. Zuma has taken a harder line than the South African president, Thabo Mbeki.

The prime minister today received loud applause when he told Scottish trade union leaders that Britain supported the recent actions of South African dock workers,

"We support those South African dock workers refusing to allow guns into South Africa that could be used against the people in Zimbabwe."

The dock workers last week refused to unload a Chinese shipment of arms bound for Zimbabwe.

Mugabe's government has accused Tsvangirai of treason and plotting a regime change with Zimbabwe's former ruler, Britain.

Malawi, another neighbor of Zimbabwe, has called on Mugabe to resume talks with Britain, white farmers and the opposition party. The statement, issued yesterday, was another sign of growing differences between southern African leaders on how to help resolve Zimbabwe's crisis.

"The government of Malawi believes that the people of Zimbabwe should not live in the past. They must move on. Therefore, we believe that a new set of negotiations could be initiated at different levels ... so that Zimbabwe can begin to develop and transform its economy."

Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general who recently helped broker a peace deal after Kenya's contested elections, at the weekend asked whether African leaders were doing enough.

"Where are the Africans? Where are the leaders and the countries in the region? What are they doing?" he told journalists in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.