MDC disputes ZEC presidential poll results

MDC disputes ZEC presidential poll results

• Mugabe 'will accept run-off result'

• What next in Zimbabwe's electoral process?

• Presidential poll 'verification' gets underway

• MDC supporter held for 'voting twice', 17 others sought

• Recount confirms opposition control of parliament

• ZEC to reveal presidential poll results

• Zvimba North recount turns up new ballots

• ZEC promises presidential poll result this weekend

• MDC retains Zaka West seat after recount

• Zvinavashe concedes after recount

• Zanu PF retains Goromonzi West in first recount result

• Partial recount begins, delays warning

• Dabengwa calls for 'transitional government'

• Recount goes ahead as judge rejects MDC petition

• MDC challenges 60 House of Assembly results

• Few options for MDC in poll stalemate

• High Court dismisses MDC poll results demand

• High Court orders ZEC to abandon recount

• MDC says Tsvangirai will not stand in run-off

• SENATE ELECTION RESULTS

• HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY ELECTION RESULTS

DEADLOCKED all-party talks hosted by Zimbabwe’s electoral commission resumed on Friday in Harare with the opposition claiming an outright victory over President Robert Mugabe in a March 29 poll.

Election officials told the first day of the closed-door meeting on Thursday that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai had won 47.8 percent and Mugabe had won 43.2 percent, several sources present at the talks told AFP.

But the Movement for Democratic Change party presented its own figures claiming Tsvangirai had won 50.3 percent, just scraping past the threshold needed to avoid a second round run-off, the sources added.

“We don’t agree with their figures. They will have to prove us wrong,” said Tsvangirai’s election agent Chris Mbanga as he entered the talks on Friday.

While the disagreement paves the way for further delays to the final results of a vote that took place nearly five weeks ago, Mugabe’s camp sought to play down their differences.

“The process is going on very well. I don’t see any reason why we can’t finish today,” senior cabinet minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is representing the ruling Zanu PF at the talks, told AFP.

Zanu PF has already endorsed Mugabe to stand in any run-off and Senegalese Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio, who met with him on Thursday in Harare, said the 84-year-old leader was up for the contest.

Mugabe had agreed to stand for a run-off “in good faith and the firm will to accept the will of the people delivered in a free and fair election,” said a statement from Gadio’s ministry.

Tsvangirai, who is currently in South Africa, insisted in an interview on Thursday he saw no need for a run-off. But refusal to participate in a second round would hand victory on a plate to his arch rival.

Tsvangirai, whose party wrested control of parliament from Mugabe’s Zanu PF party in legislative polls also held on March 29, said he won a “decisive” victory and doubted the credibility of any official results given the delays.

Based on results from individual polling stations, the MDC has ”come up with a result which we feel is credible. That result gives us a decisive victory so there’s no need for a run-off,” Tsvangirai said.

The former trade union leader also accused Mugabe of being a dictator and of unleashing a wave of violence against the opposition, which he said made it impossible for a second round of voting to be free and fair.

Zimbabwean and international rights groups say attacks by pro-government militia are aimed at instilling fear in MDC ranks. The MDC says 20 of its supporters have been killed by pro-government militias since the vote.

The United States Thursday urged Mugabe to “call off his dogs” who are allegedly attacking opposition supporters and to release the presidential election results.

State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said he believed it would be “almost be impossible to hold” a fair run-off election ”given the current campaign of state-orchestrated violence and intimidation.”

“First of all, what we need to have happen is to have President Mugabe call off his dogs and cease his security services and his supporters’ attacks on those who are simply trying to express their views peacefully,” he said.

A first-round defeat would be a major blow to Mugabe, a former guerrilla leader and hero of Africa’s national liberation movements who has ruled the former British colony since independence in 1980.

Already reeling from his party losing parliament for the first time in 28 years, it would leave him at his weakest point since coming to power amid a spiralling economic crisis in Zimbabwe, where inflation is at 165,000 percent.

However, his control of the security apparatus has led the MDC to conclude that he will intimidate voters into giving him a sixth term in office in a run-off which should take place within three weeks of results being announced. - AFP
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