Harare and Manicaland to determine presidential winner

Harare and Manicaland will determine the winner of this year’s presidential elections due in three weeks if one goes by the results of the March 2008 presidential elections.

Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai got more than 36 percent of his votes from the two provinces, garnering a total of 439 195 votes.

Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front leader Robert Mugabe polled only 18 percent of his votes from these two provinces.

What is interesting, however, is that Mugabe’s total votes for six of the country’s 10 provinces was less than Tsvangirai’s votes in Harare and Manicaland alone.

Mugabe’s votes for Bulawayo, Harare, Manicaland, Mashonaland West, Matebeleland North and Matebeleland South only totalled 437 636.

Mugabe made good his loss in the other four provinces finally losing to Tsvangirai by only115 832 votes.

But the run-off in June from which Tsvangirai pulled out paints a very disturbing picture which shows the power of intimidation.

First of all more people turned up to vote than in the March elections-2 514 750 compared to 2 497 265.

In Harare, 95 000 more people voted for Mugabe than had done in March pushing his tally from 61 215 to 156 478.

The situation was worse in Manicaland. More people voted for Mugabe in this province than any other pushing his tally from 141 592 to 323 264.

In Masvingo, another key player, more new people voted for Mugabe than had done in March with the total vote rising from 156 672 to 321 404.

Mugabe who polled 1 079 730 got an extra 1 070 539 votes in June to total 2 150 269 votes.

The question is how many of these extra voters is Mugabe going to retain or lose? And how many voters has Tsvangirai gained or lost over the past four years?

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