Zimbabwe-elections
   Zimbabwe's legislative polls delayed to May: Mugabe

   HARARE, March 26 (AFP) - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe announced
Sunday that parliamentary elections will be postponed until May due to
extended efforts to update voter registers.
   "When all is set elections could be held early in May or mid-May,"
Mugabe
said, adding that a specific poll date would be determined by how quickly
voter registers could be updated.
   The United Nations last year said that a quarter of those listed on the
voter registers had died, and another two million of the 5.8 million
registered voters had moved constituencies since the last polls in 1995.
   The adjustment of constituencies will also determine the date of the
elections, with Mugabe facing new credible opposition after two decades in
power.
   A labour-based party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is
expected
to present the biggest challenge to the ruling Zimbabwe African National
Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF).
   Mugabe made the announcement after he met Namibian leader Sam Nujoma who
stopped over in Harare on his way to Arusha, Tanzania for a new round of
Burundi peace talks.
   Mugabe said the voter registration exercise, which was extended by two
weeks to the end of March, had delayed the holding of elections in the
traditional month of April.
   Last year Mugabe contradicted his Legal Affairs Minister Emmerson
Mnangagwa
who had said it was not possible to organise elections in April.
   sn/

sidi sanneh

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