Tsvangirai's letter of withdrawal from Zimbabwe vote

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai formally withdrew from the June 27 presidential election run-off on Tuesday.

Below are excerpts from Tsvangirai's letter to the electoral commission. It was released to the media by his Movement for Democratic Change.

What has been going on in this country immediately after the elections held on the 29th March 2008 is a clear testimony that the elections scheduled for the 27th June 2008 cannot be held efficiently, freely, fairly, transparently and in accordance with the law.

Your Commission has failed to stop and/or condemn continued utterances by senior ZANU-PF officials including Mr Robert Mugabe to the effect that irrespective of the election result, Mr Robert Mugabe was not going to move out of his office.

"The failure by your Commission to condemn such utterances right from the beginning clearly encouraged ZANU-PF, war veterans aligned to ZANU-PF, senior ZANU-PF officials and Mr Robert Mugabe to make it their theme during their campaigns that a President does not come to power through the electoral process but rather through the barrel of the gun. This theme, which has become pervasive throughout the ZANU-PF campaigns, makes people wonder whether we are in an election or in a war.

As of today, the country has recorded at least 86 deaths, 10,000 homes destroyed, 200,000 people displaced and 10,000 people injured.

The victims have been MDC supporters. The violence has been clearly state-sponsored and carried out in most cases by members of the Zimbabwe National Army and ZANU-PF militia. It is true that in some instances our supporters have fought back, in most cases in self defense.

If this present scenario is compared to the period towards the 29 March harmonized election, it is evident that the conditions on the ground have fundamentally changed for the worse.

Since I launched my campaign for the presidential run-off elections, I have encountered numerous difficulties occasioned by agents of the State. I have been detained at police stations on numerous occasions and thereby denied time to campaign.

Our meeting and rallies have been banned by the police. We have had to approach the High Court on no less than 3 occasions for the court to intervene to enable us to go ahead with our rallies. On the contrary, ZANU-PF is being allowed to conduct its campaign rallies even during the night.

The violence, intimidation, death, destruction of property is just too much for anyone to dream of a free and fair election let alone expect our people to be able to freely and independently express to free themselves.

For this reason, my party and I have resolved that we cannot be part to this flawed process. For the avoidance of any doubt the presidential election question remains unresolved until such time a free and fair election is held.