Zimbabwe will proceed with run-off elections.
Even though opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai announced Sunday he would pull out of Friday’s runoff, the Zimbabwean government is still going ahead with the election, reports CNN. Tsvangirai, who is currently taking refuge at the Dutch Embassy in the country’s capital city, Harare, dropped out of the second round of votes because of what he says were government supporters’ violent acts and intimidation toward his supporters. Such acts included arrests, beatings and murder. He didn’t want his supporters to risk their lives by going to vote for him in Friday’s poll, he says. The government hasn’t received a formal withdrawal from Tsvangirai’s party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), but party officials say they are drafting a formal letter. But even the letter might not stop the elections. “There is nothing on this good Earth that will stop the elections on the 27th,” said a spokesman for Tsvangirai’s opponent, longtime Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe. Even if Tsvangirai were to withdraw formally, which he hasn’t done, the elections will still proceed. Meanwhile, MDC headquarters reportedly were raided by the Zimbabwean government. Sixty people were arrested and an opposition party spokesman told reporters that the government gave no reason for the raid.