Zimbabwe’s Leader Calls for Unity After Divisive Election

HARARE, Zimbabwe — President Robert Mugabe appealed for national reconciliation Tuesday after his ruling party narrowly won parliamentary elections following a bitter campaign marked by violence and intimidation.

Mugabe promised to work with Zimbabwe’s newly elected parliament, which will have a serious opposition presence for the first time in a decade.

“Our next parliament is certainly destined to prove very lively, but hopefully lively in a very positive way,” the 76-year-old authoritarian president said.

Opposition candidates, promising a change in the country’s disastrous economic performance, made sweeping gains in the vote. The Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC, won 57 seats, compared with 62 for Mugabe’s party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, or ZANU-PF. An independent party won one.

The previous parliament had only three opposition members.

The strong showing by the opposition in the weekend vote, however, will not give it much say in running the country. Its strength will be diluted after Mugabe appoints 30 members to the 150-seat parliament, as permitted by the constitution.

Mugabe has said he will not bring the opposition into the Cabinet.

The voting Saturday and Sunday came after months of political violence and intimidation that left more than 30 people dead. European Union monitors said the violence, which they called state-sponsored terror, meant that the elections were flawed and that the campaign was not free and fair.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai expressed disappointment that his party had not won a majority but said the country was “on the path of change.”

“Anyone who believes the destiny of this country rests on Robert Mugabe must have his head examined,” Tsvangirai said.

Tsvangirai said he would challenge Mugabe when the president’s term expires in 2002.

In his televised address Tuesday, Mugabe said it was now time for the country to unite across racial, class and ethnic divides.

During the election campaign, Mugabe branded the opposition as puppets of the country’s small but economically powerful white community and stooges of Britain, the former colonial power. He called white farmers enemies of the country and promised to seize some of their land and redistribute it to the country’s impoverished, landless blacks.

Despite the campaign’s violence and intimidation, voters turned out in large numbers--more than double the turnout of the last parliamentary elections.