Shadow of fear as Mugabe ups ante

Mugabe’s embattled ZANU-PF party gathered on Friday, its first meeting since it lost control of parliament in weekend elections. The opposition claims to have won the presidency as well, but official returns in that race have not yet been released.

On Thursday, Zimbabwe’s main opposition party said that Mugabe has “unleashed a war” in his bid to stay in power after party offices were raided and foreign journalists detained.

Nelson Chamisa, spokesman for the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change, said it was ready to go to court to force the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to announce the results.

“We want to see results by today. If that doesn’t happen then we will retrieve all our tools including court process to make sure we give Zimbabweans the results as soon as possible,” he said.

Mugabe was said to be pondering conflicting advice from his advisers on whether to quietly cede power or face a runoff, both humiliating prospects for the 84-year-old president.

Diplomats in Harare and at the United Nations said Mugabe was planning to declare a 90-day delay to a presidential runoff to give security forces time to clamp down. The law requires a runoff be held within 21 days of an election, but Mugabe could change that with a presidential decree, a Western diplomat in Harare said.

The splinter faction of the opposition indicated Friday it would support Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai in a runoff.

“Whatever formation is there to remove Mugabe, we are there to support it,” Abednico Bhebhe, spokesman for the faction headed by Arthur Mutambara, told The Associated Press.

On Thursday, MDC secretary-general Tendai Biti said hotel rooms used as offices by the opposition at a Harare hotel were ransacked by intruders he believed were either police or agents of the feared Central Intelligence Organization.

“Mugabe has started a crackdown,” Biti told The Associated Press. “It is quite clear he has unleashed a war.”

Also Thursday, heavily armed riot police surrounded and entered a Harare hotel housing foreign correspondents and took five away, lawyers said.

Zimbabwe lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa said two of the journalists were jailed and would be charged Friday with practicing journalism without licenses. She said the other three were released.

Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, said Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent Barry Bearak was among the reporters initially detained. The identities of the other reporters had not been determined. The U.S.-based National Democratic Institute said Thursday that one of its staff members was detained by Zimbabwean authorities at Harare’s airport. President Bush’s national security spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, said Friday that White House officials were “troubled by reports we are hearing on the ground in Zimbabwe.”