‘Frightened’ Zimbabwe votes in one-man poll

In contrast to the excitement and hope for change that marked the first round of voting in March, this election is expected only to deepen the nation’s political and economic crisis.

Paramilitary police in riot gear deployed in a central Harare park on Friday, then began patrolling the city. Mugabe supporters roamed the streets, singing revolutionary songs and forcing people to vote.

A gunman in civilian clothes was seen attacking a TV news cameraman and the voter he was interviewing on a Harare street, then forcing them into a police vehicle.

Hundreds of journalists, mainly from Western media organisations, have been banned from covering Zimbabwe’s elections.

World leaders condemned the polling. “Today’s election is a sham, the election is hollow and its result will be equally hollow and meaningless,” EU spokeswoman Krisztina Nagy said in Brussels, Belgium.

“Some of them are saying ‘We were told to come here’,” Pan African Parliament spokesman Khalid A Dahab said. “It’s just not normal. There’s a lot of tension.”

Few people turned out at poll opening time in the capital’s densely populated Mbare suburb, an Opposition stronghold.

Up to 300 people waited at one station in Mbare. But elsewhere, the two or three voters were outnumbered by an intimidating police presence.

Mugabe appeared jovial as he voted. He said he was feeling “very fit, very optimistic, upbeat and hungry.”