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HARARE, May 8, 2008 (thezimbabwetimes.com) - Opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) secretary-general, Tendai Biti, currently based in South Africa, faces arrest on his return to Zimbabwe.

 

The police have indicated that they are keen to interview Biti for allegedly declaring the results of the March 29 harmonised elections illegally in contravention of the Electoral Act.

 

The police say the electoral law gives the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) the exclusive right to announce poll results.

 

In early April Biti declared that Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, had won the presidential election.

 

Senior police spokesman Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena confirmed Tuesday that the police were on the hunt for Biti with a view to questioning him.

 

 “It’s not a secret that the police are keen to question the MDC secretary general on a number of issues relating to the contravention of the Electoral Act,” Bvudzijena said: Bvudzijena said.

Bvudzijena claimed that Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri had already written to Biti advising that the police were keen to interview him on his return.

 

In a letter, the police commissioner said the police were not amused by the manner in which Biti was “urging (sic) and abetting political violence” through his political rhetoric.

 

Chihuri wrote: “What is very conspicuous in the Zimbabwean political arena today is your prominent role in urging and abetting political violence through unbridled rhetoric. The police have been looking for you so that you could assist in investigations surrounding the above-mentioned issue concerning the electoral laws and other matters.”

 

But the opposition has denied that such a letter was ever written to Biti or his office.

MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa accused Chihuri of playing to the gallery adding that by announcing the results of the March 29 poll Biti had not committed any crime.

 

Chamisa said: “When Biti announced the results ZEC had already posted the same results outside all polling stations across the country. He did not create the results, ZEC did. All he did was to inform our supporters. Remember ZEC was announcing results at ward level.”

 

He added: “It’s very clear Chihuri is playing to the gallery of a defeated regime. This is a tragic comedy in the making. Unfortunately Zimbabweans are not amused at all”.

 

A government official has indicated that Tsvangirai may also face arrest on his return to Zimbabwe. Government sources say the police were under pressure to create grounds for charging the MDC leader with treason.

 

Last week Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa suggested that Tsvangirai may have committed a crime after a document leaked to the state media claimed that the MDC leader had invited the Britain and the United States to intervene militarily to end the crisis in Zimbabwe.

 

Chinamasa was then quoted by the state media as saying Tsvangirai would “meet the obvious consequences of the law” if he was found guilty of treason by inviting foreign military intervention in Zimbabwe in his official capacity as leader of the opposition.

 

Bvudzijena, however, denied that the police were keen to interview Tsvangirai although he said that the police would have interest in any criminal activity by the opposition leader.

Tsvangirai has in the past said it was not safe for him to return home as he faces the prospect of arrest.

 

“It is no use going back to Zimbabwe to become a captive,” the MDC leader told Canada’s The Globe and Mail in an interview in April. “Then you are not effective. What can you do? Do you want a dead hero?”

 

Tsvangirai, who went into exile on April 8, says he is using the time he is out of the country to launch a massive diplomatic offensive aimed at intensifying pressure on  Mugabe to hand over power peacefully.

For the first time since Independence in 1980, Zanu-PF has lost its parliamentary majority in Parliament to the opposition, while Mugabe has lost an election.

Tsvangirai is said to have been offered asylum by Botswana’s President Seretse Ian Khama and has been shuttling across the sub-region from his base in Gaborone, where he is a special guest of the state.

Tsvangirai said: “I’m mobilising international support; I’m being effective in making sure that the issue of Zimbabwe remains on the international radar.”

During the time he has been out of the country, pressure has been mounting on him to return and challenge Mugabe inside the country.

 

The MDC says over 20 opposition activists have been bludgeoned to death by Zanu-PF militants, hundreds have been arrested and over 5 000 have been displaced as a post-election terror campaign targeting opposition supporters has spread to Zimbabwe’s rural districts.

 

The MDC refuses to disclose when Tsvangirai and Biti will be returning to Zimbabwe.