Lagos — An independent polls assessment has given Zimbabwean opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), a lead over President Robert Mugabe of ZANU-PF in presidential elections with 58 per cent of the vote.

Senior MDC official, Tendai Biti, said Tsvangirai had won 60 per cent of the votes, against 30 per cent for Robert Mugabe.

But the country's Electoral Commission says MDC is tied with ZANU-PF, with each having won 12 parliamentary seats so far.

MDC has also obtained a parliamentary majority, according to a website the MDC said was set up by non-governmental organisations and reflected its own assessment.

But electoral authorities said the party won 19 of 38 parliamentary seats announced so far, while government spokesman, George Charamba, warned the MDC against claiming victory before official results are announced.

"It is called a coup d'etat and we all know how coups are handled," he said.

"We have won this election, but the ruling party and its apparatus may still try and steal it," Tendai Biti, the MDC's secretary general, said in an interview from Harare yesterday. "Rigging can happen and that's why we are taking the precaution of doing our own counts from information posted outside polling stations. We know we are well ahead," he said.

Deputy Information Minister, Bright Matonga, denied the polls would be rigged and said the president would accept defeat.

"We don't expect to lose... It's going to be a very tight contest and if he loses, you have to accept," he said.

Matonga also denied rumours that Mugabe had gone to Malaysia or was planning to impose a state of emergency.

Mugabe, 84, is competing against Tsvangirai, 56, and Simba Makoni, a 58-year-old former finance minister, to extend his 28-year-rule of Zimbabwe.

The southern African nation has suffered a decade-long recession and the world's highest inflation rate, 100,580 per cent, after Mugabe's seizures of white-owned commercial farms caused export income to plummet.

In elections in 2000, 2002 and 2005, early vote counts from urban areas put the MDC ahead before rural-area results allowed Mugabe to claim victory.

Of the seats announced, the MDC won eight in Harare to the ruling Zanu-PF's one, results posted on the website of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation showed. Almost all of Zanu-PF's seats were in rural areas.

Since the polls closed two days ago, only 18 per cent of seats have been announced by the state-run Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.

Uncertainty created by the commission's delay in releasing results may lead to public protests, Marian Tupy, a sub-Saharan Africa specialist at the Washington-based Cato Institute, said in an e-mailed statement.

"Should that occur, the role of the police and army will be crucial in determining whether the democratic process is respected or ignored," he said.

Zimbabwean riot police and paramilitary units have been deployed throughout Harare, police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said in an interview from the city. The security forces would prevent intimidation and violence, he said.

"People mustn't be violent and must not intimidate or provoke," Bvudzijena said. "However, it's human to celebrate, but we don't want any insulting behaviour."

The poll assessment showed Mugabe winning 37 per cent of the presidential vote and Simba Makoni, a 58-year-old former Zanu-PF member and ex-finance minister, 5 per cent.

It gave the MDC 117 out of the 210 seats to be allocated, Zanu-PF 50 and independents and a splinter group of the MDC that competed separately 20. The other results were yet to be collated.

In some constituencies "the turn out is very low, about 40 per cent," Irene Petras, the head of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, said. "They also aren't talking about the spoilt ballot, which is very important given the number of voters that were turned away' from polling stations".

This year's ballot was held amid accusations by Amnesty International and other human rights groups that the government harassed the opposition and threatened to cut off food supplies to voters who didn't back the ruling party.