Robert Mugabe

Results from the elections showed that the Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front had won 74 seats, which along with 30 presidential appointees gave the party enough clout to vote in key changes in Parliament.

The opposition Movement for Demoratic Change picked up 40 seats, according to incomplete results from the electoral commission.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai slammed the outcome of the elections as a "disgusting, massive fraud" and accused the 81-year-old Mugabe of treating the country as if it were "his property."

Britain and the United States said the elections were neither free nor fair.

In stark contrast, a group of southern African observers who issued a statement that described the elections as "open, transparent and professional."

Having been in the throes of crises for the past five years, the government admitted for the first time last month that it would begin importing corn meal, the national staple, to feed some 1.5 million needy citizens.

The Japan Times Weekly: April 9, 2005
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