Barely noticed abroad because of the war on Iraq, on 31 March the Movement for Democratic Change regained some of the momentum it had lost with two by-election victories in its Harare strongholds. In Kuwadzana constituency, the MDC won 12,548 votes, the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front 5,002. In Highfield, the MDC took 8,759 votes, ZANU 4,844. After a campaign in which each side accused the other of violence and hundreds of people were injured, polling was fairly peaceful. The MDC, which had pronounced the poll neither free nor fair, swiftly accepted victory, calling on the government to restore law and human rights or risk civil unrest. President Robert Mugabe (AC Vol 44 No 6) promised to crush the MDC.
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