Kitsepile Nyathi And Agencies
2 April 2008
Harare — Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai will beat President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe's crucial election, but be forced into a runoff vote in three weeks, according to a ruling party projection.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's electoral body appealed for patience and calm following delays in the announcement of official results of Saturday's presidential polls, in a scene reminiscent of Kenya's poll delays in December.
Earlier Tuesday, two ZANU-PF party sources said their projection showed Mr Tsvangirai falling short of the 51 per cent needed for outright victory. It was similar to projections by an independent monitoring group.
Mr Mugabe, in power for 28 years, faced his most formidable challenge in the election, with both Tsvangirai and third candidate Simba Makoni, a former finance minister, accusing him of reducing the population to misery by wrecking Zimbabwe's economy.
Official results Tuesday showed ZANU-PF with a narrow lead of two seats in the parliamentary poll with 131 out of 210 constituencies declared. But a breakaway opposition party took another five seats.
A third government minister lost his seat and results showed the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) making some inroads into Mugabe's traditional rural strongholds.
Two senior government sources who asked not to be named said their projections showed Tsvangirai getting 48.3 per cent, against Mugabe's 43 per cent, with Makoni taking eight per cent.
"What this means is that we are looking at a re-run because he did not win with a margin of over 51 per cent that would have given him the job straight away," one of the sources said.
A projection by the independent Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) had Mr Tsvangirai taking 49.4 per cent and Mugabe 41.8 per cent with Makoni on 8.2.
The opposition is expected to unite behind one candidate if there is a runoff, which would be held three weeks after last Saturday's election.
A senior Western diplomat told Reuters a re-run was likely.
"We can all speculate about what they (ZANU-PF) did or did not do. But when you look at some of the projections by other observers, such as ZESN, they are pointing to a re-run," he said.
Zimbabweans are suffering the world's highest inflation of more than 100,000 per cent, food and fuel shortages, and an HIV/Aids epidemic that has contributed to a steep decline in life expectancy.
The MDC says the unprecedented delay in issuing presidential results indicates Mugabe is trying to stave off defeat by fraud. Electoral authorities said they were still collating and verifying returns.
"It is now clear that there is something fishy. The whole thing is suspicious and totally unacceptable," MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said.
Seven European countries and the United States called on Zimbabwe's Electoral Commission to quickly release the results.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Tuesday called for their immediate publication, saying the democratic rights of Zimbabweans must be upheld.
"The eyes of the world ... will be upon Zimbabwe so that the doubts that people have and the questions people have can be answered," Brown said.
The MDC said unofficial tallies showed Tsvangirai had 60 per cent of the presidential vote, twice the total for Mugabe.
"In our view, as we stated before, we cannot see the national trend changing. This means the people have spoken, they've spoken against the dictatorship," MDC Secretary-General Tendai Biti said.
Analysts say Mr Mugabe is likely to lose the second round as the opposition would join forces to oust the veteran leader.
The semi-autonomous Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), which has been announcing results of the parliamentary polls in small batches since Monday morning said it needed more time to verify results of the presidential election coming from the country's provinces.
"The ZEC will like to advise the nation that it is currently receiving from various centres results of the presidential elections and counting and verification will commence once all the results have been received," the commission's chief elections officer, Mr Lovemore Sekeramayi, said in a lunchtime televised address.
"Therefore we urge the nation to remain calm as we go through this meticulous process." Mr Sekeremayi spoke as anxiety continued to build up in the troubled countr,y fuelled by rumours that Mr Mugabe and the ruling party were trying to rig the elections to avoid a whitewash by the opposition.
MDC says it has won a landslide in the presidential, parliamentary, senatorial and local government elections, which will effectively bring to an end Zanu PF's rule stretching from independence in 1980.
On Tuesday, the opposition threatened to go to court to challenge some of the results released by the electoral body, which it says contradict what was pasted outside polling stations when polls closed.
One of the dispute seats is that of Vice President Joice Mujuru, a key Mugabe ally who won in a rural province in Mashonaland province with more than 13 000 votes.
But the MDC said it votes count for the constituency showed that only 6 000 people voted for Mrs Mujuru.
As of lunchtime Tuesday, the ZEC had released results of 131 constituencies which showed that the ruling party and the MDC were still running neck and neck.
Zanu PF was slightly ahead with 64 seats while the Mr Morgan Tsvangirai led MDC had won 62 seats. The other five went to the Professor Arthur Mutambara led faction of the MDC.
There were 209 parliamentary seats up for grabs after a Zanu PF candidate won a seat unopposed.
Three of Mr Mugabe's close allies have fallen so far in the official results announced by ZEC.
Transport and Communication Minister, Chris Mushowe was the latest to lose his seat after ZEC announced on Monday that Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa and Mr Chen Chimtengwende of Public and Interactive Affairs had been beaten by MDC candidates.
The government has warned the opposition not to declare victory as it would amount to a coup attempt.
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