Ncube's mistress dies

The sad end of the woman at the centre of the scandal

Rosemary Sibanda, the woman at the eye of the infidelity storm that engulfed the then Archbishop Pius Ncube, and eventually forced him to quit, died at Bulawayo's Mpilo General Hospital on Friday.

Ncube, the former head of the Bulawayo diocese of the Roman Catholic Church and a vocal critic of Robert Mugabe's government, admitted to the adulterous affair with Sibanda shortly before he was reassigned to the Vatican.

Rosemary died just after noon on Friday. Hospital authorities say she had been admitted on April 30, suffering from pneumonia. "She was very frail when admitted," a nurse at the well-run but poorly equipped hospital said. "We tried to save her life but it was too late."

Her husband, Onesimus Sibanda, is suing Ncube for Z$5 trillion, accusing him of adultery, and claiming that Rosemary infected him with HIV which she allegedly contracted from the Archbishop.

Sleeping in the tall grass

How victims of the Zanu-PF countryside purge pass the night

Mercy Chiusaru is six years old. When I meet her she is settling down for the night in the tall grass by the side of a road in Muzarabani. It is a chilly night, and her father, Clever Chiusaru covers her with a thin sheet.

Her sister, Taizivel, aged eight, left the family farm to go to school that morning. Then the Zanu-PF militia arrived, and drove the family out. Taizivel hasn't been seen since.

Clever Chiusaru tells me:  "I don't know if I will ever see her again. I dare not go back to the farm - they will kill me."

Chiusaru voted MDC in the elections.

A few yards away Mbuya Manjazi, who is a frail 74, wraps herself in a threadbare towel before trying to sleep. She too was driven from her home.

It's official - Tsvangirai won

The poll result is finally announced  - but will it be accepted?

Zimbabwe's election officials today finally did what the world has been asking them to do for weeks - they announced the official result of the presidential election. They reported that Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition MDC, beat President Mugabe with 47.9 per cent of the vote.

This result, if accepted, means a re-run of the poll, in order to produce a winner with over 50 per cent support. The MDC have consistently claimed that Tsvangirai won the original poll by more than 50 per cent, and have said they would accept no other result.

Tsvangirai himself has been quoted as saying he would agree to a re-run if the second election were overseen by the United Nations - something that Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party would dismiss out of hand.

Observers on the ground believe that, with the on-going Zanu-PF-inspired campaign of violence and murder, with Tsvangirai himself in virtual exile, and with many leading MDC activists in hiding, no new and fair election is possible.