JURIST - Paper Chase: Zimbabwe police ban political rallies

[JURIST] Police in Zimbabwe Friday banned all political demonstrations as tension continued to mount after the country's contested March 29th presidential election [JURIST report]. Independent observers say that Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) candidate Morgan Tsvangirai [BBC profile] won more votes than current Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe [BBC profile, JURIST news archive], but Mugabe and his Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front [party website] are demanding a recount [JURIST report]. MDC had planned a rally for Sunday, and an MDC spokesperson said that the party has not decided whether it will still hold the rally in defiance of the ban. AP has more.

Also Friday, the Zimbabwean Electoral Commission (ZEC), which has yet to announce official results for the presidential election because of "errors and miscalculations" in their compilation, apparently closed its Harare offices without official announcement. Earlier this month, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) [party website] filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] to compel ZEC to release the results of the presidential elections, and a ZEC official said in an interview with a state-run news agency Friday that the agency would wait to hear the outcome of the court challenge before releasing the results. IRIN has more.

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