Mugabe looks a winner as Rhodesia counts votes

Press, 4 March 1980, Page 8

Mugabe looks a winner as Rhodesia counts votes

NZPA-Reuter Salisbury Counting is on in Rhodesia’s - independence elections, already endorsed by the largest and most influential overseas observer group as a free and* fair expression of the will of the country’s black majority. The result of last week’s three days of voting will be announced late today, and the Marxist-leaning guerrilla leader, Mr Robert Mugabe, is expected to top the poll. But no single party seems likely to obtain a clear majority, and the first Government of the new independent Zimbabwe, expected t 0 take office this month, will probably be a coalition.

Members of the fivenation Commonwealth cease-

fire monitoring force who oversaw the transition from bush war to a demo-cratically-elected government have begun withdrawing from assembly camps they have shared with 22,000 guerrillas for the last tw o months. Yesterday, a 33-member observer group from 11 Commonwealth countries that has scrutinised the campaign and ballot said .the election could be considered free, and fair, and had provided “an adequate and acceptable • means of determining the wishes of the people in a democratic manner.” Another group, a 21-mem-ber official British Government team, declared: “The (remarkably high poll showed

that the people of Rhodesia as a whole want an end to the war and a new start in independence.” Election officials reported that. 93.6 per cent of an estimated 2.8 million black electorate had voted. Other observer groups from a number of different countries have announced similar positive conclusions about the conditions under which the election was held. The observer groups’ reports will be welcomed by the British authorities, who have been sharply criticised by t ! >.e leaders of at least four black African States on the ground of alleged bias against the parties allied to the. guerrillas who fought against white minority rule for seven years.

Yesterday, Mr Mugabe returned from three days of talks with Presidents Samora Machel of Mozambique and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania. Asked why he had left the country at such a crucial time, an extremely confident Mr Mugabe said he had gone "to appraise them in advance of our election victory.” The guerrilla leader, speaking to reporters at his heavily-guarded Salisbury home, also called on the British Governor (Lord Soames) to stay on for at least a month after the formation of a new Government to help build white confidence — a suggestion British officials indicated was not likely to be taken UP-