Zimbabwe bans political rallies

Police banned political rallies Friday as the crisis deepened over Zimbabwe’s unresolved presidential election. A senior police official warned that anyone who defied the order would be “dealt with severely.”

The opposition said it was considering whether to defy the ban and call a general strike.

“We cannot accept a declaration of a police state,” said Nelson Chamisa, spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. “People have just voted for change, for democracy and what do they get? This is unacceptable. This is ridiculous.”

The developments came as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the international community’s patience with the Zimbabwean regime was “wearing thin.”

Brown said he was “appalled by the signs that the regime is once again resorting to intimidation and violence.” The comments were the strongest yet from the leader of Britain, Zimbabwe’s former colonial ruler.

Zimbabwe’s opposition accused President Robert Mugabe’s regime of waging a violent crackdown in an attempt to keep power, two weeks after a presidential election that produced no official winner.

Zimbabwe’s neighbors hoped for a resolution today at an emergency summit in Zambia, but it was unclear whether Mugabe would even attend.

Official results from the March 29 election have yet to be released. Independent tallies suggest Mugabe lost but that a runoff would be needed because no one won more than 50% of the vote.

Opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai says he won outright, and he has traveled the region in recent days asking neighboring leaders to press for Mugabe to resign after 28 years in power.

In an interview from Botswana, Tsvangirai implied that he feared returning home, saying he was a “prime target” for security forces. He told the South African Broadcasting Corp. that he hoped the summit would “create new circumstances to calm the situation down and create a safe environment for me to go back.”

Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change has held no major protests since the vote, but the party planned a rally for Sunday, a day before an expected High Court ruling on their petition to force the release of the results.