Zimbabwe election crisis

Tsvangirai takes refuge in Dutch embassy

Article published on the 2008-06-23 Latest update 2008-06-23 15:40 TU

Morgan Tsvangirai, 22 June 2008.
( Photo : AFP)

Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulleZimbabwe’s opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has taken refuge in the Dutch Embassy in Harare after he said he was pulling out of the Presidential election. Tsvangirai said that intimidation and violence have made a fair election impossible. Police took away 39 members of his opposition MDC saying they were not arrested, but were being taken away for health reasons.

The opposition leader and presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai took refuge in the Dutch Embassy in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare on Monday.  The Embassy says he fears for his safety.

Tsvangirai on Sunday had said he was withdrawing from the presidential election run-off against incumbent Robert Mugabe slated for 27 June 2008.

“Zanu-PF is not respecting the rules of the game," MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa told RFI. "They are not respecting the constitution, they’re not respecting institutions that are supposed to run the election. They’re not respecting the people. They are in fact, in a war with the people.”

“For that reason, we do not want to continue to bless and endorse that kind of rogue behaviour," Chamisa said.

The announcement leaves President Robert Mugabe, in power for more than 20 years, unopposed in the second round of voting, handing him a virtually guaranteed victory.

However, Tsvangirai has not yet done the official paperwork to withdraw his candidacy, and said that he would announce his next move on Wednesday, fuelling speculation that he might reverse his decision.

The announcement has drawn commentary from around the world.

The approach to the run-off had been tense: as many as 80 MDC supporters have been found dead and Tsvangirai himself has been arrested and detained several times. Police raided the opposition's headquarters on Monday and took people out of the building and bundling them in a bus, said an AFP journalist who witnessed the scene.

Tsvangirai beat Mugabe in the March first round of the vote -- and the Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since independence.

Mugabe has been deaf to criticism, telling world leaders at a Food Summit in Rome earlier this month that his country’s impoverishment is due to the West’s racist policies, and stating Friday that "only God" could remove him from office.