As the Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai awaited the official announcement of the results of last Saturday's presidential elections in Zimbabwe, all unofficial sources pointed to the fact that he had defeated President Robert Mugabe, and that Mugabe's 28 years of tyrannical rule were about to end.
Security forces were reported to be in protracted behind-the-scenes negotiations with leaders of Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change, and the ruling Zanu-PF on how to ensure a smooth transfer of power. But, given that the stakes could hardly be higher for Mr Mugabe and his supporters, uncertainty remained over their likely response to defeat. Meanwhile church leaders kept their counsel, clearly hoping that a peaceful and just outcome to the election could be achieved.
Zimbabwe's Christian Churches, which worked hard at grass-roots level to promote free and fair elections, had earlier expressed anxiety that the failure to announce results could mean rigging by Mr Mugabe and Zanu-PF. "The elections passed off peacefully, with a reasonable turnout, but we are suspicious that the will of the people might not be respected," the coordinator of Harare Catholic Archdiocese Justice and Peace Commission, Joel Nkunsane, said on Tuesday.
As The Tablet went to press, the Zimbabwe Election Commission said that Zanu-PF had lost its majority in parliament, taking 97 out of 207 contested seats. Meanwhile there was confusion over whether there would be a presidential run-off between Mr Tsvangirai and Mr Mugabe. But sources said that Mr Mugabe would never accept the humiliation of a run-off.
Fear of violence, such as that seen in Kenya after its disputed election in December 2007, was voiced by Bishop Patrick Mutume, auxiliary in Mutare, who felt that "the delay could make people suspicious of the results, and this is a potential source of trouble". It was concern about civil war after the last presidential elections in 2002, which were lost but "stolen" by Mr Mugabe, that caused him to take the controversial decision to attend Mr Mugabe's hasty inauguration ceremony in March that year, along with Bishop Alexio Muchabaiwa of Mutare. The Catholic bishops' conference had made no official statement by the time The Tablet went to press, but the bishops had already made their feelings about the Mugabe regime absolutely clear in their Easter 2007 letter to the faithful, "God Hears the Cry of the Oppressed".
The Inter-Regional Meeting of the Bishops of Southern Africa, known as Imbisa, which had more than 300 personnel observing last Saturday's election, reported that they did not witness any incidents of violence. However, Sr Veronica Dingi of Imbisa's Harare office feared that the delay in announcing results has caused disquiet and "might trigger instability". Sebastian Bakare, the Anglican Bishop of Harare, commented that "people on the ground have the results, which were posted up at the country's polling stations, and this is the time to show the world there is democracy in Zimbabwe".
Zimbabwe's churches had been working behind the scenes to ensure that people used their vote. The Zimbabwe Christian Alliance (ZCA) of 900 churches, including Catholic churches, took a multilingual awareness campaign into remote rural areas to encourage the Christian community - which constitutes 75 per cent of the Zimbabwean population - to use its vote. Many people had been fearful of voting because of frequent reports of intimidation. The ZCA, supported by the British Christian charity Tearfund, also monitored balloting in areas where they have churches.
ZCA and the Justice and Peace Commission both trained election observers. According to Oskar Wermter, head of Jesuit Communications in Harare, "the great majority of our parishioners in Mbare, an opposition stronghold, did vote; that was easy to see, because everyone who had voted had a red little finger, because voters had to dip their little fingers in indelible ink so as to stop them from voting a second time".