Threats, fear as Zimbabwe votes

HARARE, Zimbabwe — President Robert Mugabe's militias drove a frightened electorate to the polls Friday, checking off names of voters and threatening vengeance on those who failed to cast ballots for the only man ever to rule Zimbabwe.

Voters said ruling-party officials forced them to register their names, addresses and national identification numbers before entering polling stations. On leaving, they were told to report the last three digits of their ballot's serial number so their choice could be monitored.

"We have been warned that we will lose our house if we don't vote for" Mugabe, said Spencer Mashonga, 25, whose parents live in subsidized government housing. "So we just have to vote."

Cecil Zhangazha, 47, a polling agent for Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, or ZANU-PF, stood near the entrance of a polling station in rural Dema and greeted voters with a list of those expected to cast ballots for Mugabe. "We've been educating people," Zhangazha said. "We believe they are all going to vote for ZANU-PF. That we have made sure of."

Many voters were desperate for the protection offered by a pinkie finger dipped in red ink, evidence they had voted. "I just wanted the ink for security reasons," said MacDonald, 33, who voted in the Harare suburb of Highfield and did not want his last name used. "I fear victimization from the ZANU-PF militia. It is obvious they will come door to door. If they see you do not have the red ink, they will know you are for the opposition."

By the official count in the March 29 presidential election, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai outpolled Mugabe, 48 percent to 43 percent, but by narrowly missing an absolute majority, a runoff was required.

Many Zimbabweans awoke Friday to the sounds of young people marching through neighborhoods, singing songs about Mugabe, 84, and demanding that voters turn out, even though Tsvangirai, 56, had dropped out of the race Sunday amid the campaign violence. He withdrew too late to have his name removed from the ballot. Since then, he has spent most of his time in the Dutch Embassy, afraid of arrest, assault or worse.

Coercion, while common, was not all-pervasive. In the capital, Harare, and Bulawayo, the two largest cities, turnout was light at most polling stations, with election workers, police and soldiers often outnumbering voters. Local election officers rebuffed questions about turnout, though national officials said it was high.

The death toll in the past three months has exceeded 80, with tens of thousands of others wounded or driven from their homes. Families have been brutalized, shot, whipped, poisoned, beaten with iron bars and forced to renounce their political views publicly.

The violence generated an international outcry, including harsh rebukes from Mugabe's fellow African leaders. The crisis is expected to be a major topic of discussion at next week's meeting of the African Union in Egypt.

The U.N. Security Council issued a statement Friday saying it was a "matter of deep regret that elections went ahead in these circumstances." But South Africa, whose president, Thabo Mbeki, has been reluctant to criticize Mugabe, blocked a U.S. and British effort to have the election declared illegitimate. Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said he has begun discussions about a resolution that would impose unspecified sanctions on Zimbabwe if it continued to flout calls for restraint.

As more stories of intimidation became known Friday, Tsvangirai said, "What is happening today is not an election, it is an exercise in mass intimidation."

Responding to criticism, Mugabe told the state-run newspaper, The Herald, that everything is relative. "Some African countries have done worse things," he said. "I would like some African leaders who are making these statements to point at me, and we would see if those fingers would be cleaner than mine."

Material from The New York Times is included in this report.