Shots were fired at officials of Zimbabwe’s leading opposition party late on Sunday, shortly after the end of two days of voting in two key local elections considered a preview of upcoming presidential polls, a party official said.

Welshman Ncube, secretary general of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), told AFP by telephone from Bulawayo that at around 21:30 pm he and a group of other officials in the party were shot at by a group of suspected war veterans who support President Robert Mugabe.

“We were standing outside the offices. A group of war veterans with bright hunting torches fired four shots,” Ncube said. The group approached the offices by foot and opened fire, but no one was injured in the attack, Ncube said.

The shooting came shortly after the end of voting in what had been a largely peaceful campaign for mayor. A parliamentary by-election was also held in the rural constituency of Makoni-West. The incident also came only hours after Mugabe said that he agreed in principle to a Commonwealth-brokered deal to curb the violence in the southern African nation.

Three bodyguards for David Coltart, an MDC lawmaker representing a Bulawayo district, were arrested late on Saturday. Coltart said the three had been involved in filming what he alleged were attempts by the ruling party to ferry supporters into the city to bolster votes for their candidate.

They were originally charged with possessing walkie-talkies without a license, Coltart said. But state television reported late Sunday that police in Bulawayo searched the homes of three bodyguards and found rifles, ammunition, jungle knives, and radios. The accused, who remain in custody, could face charges of possessing weapons of war.

Voter turnout in both the Bulawayo mayoral election and the Makoni-West parliamentary by-election had been low, state television said. The two elections are seen by many as a popularity test for Mugabe’s Zanu PF. More than 58 000 voters, out of more than 300 000 registered in Bulawayo, had cast their ballots by midday Saturday, an election official told state media.

An election official in Makoni West was quoted by state radio Sunday as saying 15 500 of the 42 000 registered voters in Makoni West had also turned out at the polls on Saturday.

MDC’s candidate in Makoni-West, Remus Makuwaza, told AFP by telephone that Zanu PF supporters had gathered outside polling stations in the area to take down the names of voters. He claimed it was an intimidation tactic used “at almost every polling station” to cow people into voting for the ruling party.

From ZWNEWS: The other MDC officials shot at in Bulawayo were Gibson Sibanda, MDC vice-president; Paul Themba-Nyathi, MDC elections director; and Fletcher Dhlamini, a Matabeleland MDC MP and senior party official. The group, including Welshman Ncube, received a telephone call saying that there was a disturbance at MDC offices in Bulawayo. As soon as they stepped out of the car in which they had been travelling, shots were fired.

A very serious hostage situation has suddenly developed on a farm in the Beatrice area south of Harare. Mr Arthur Brown, the farm’s owner and Mr Angus Brown, the farm manager, are barricaded inside the homestead by a violent mob of Zanu PF supporters and war veterans.

-News24