Zimbabwe: Tsvangirai Must Fight Run-Off - Govt Sources

30 April 2008
allAfrica.com

Zimbabwe's opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, beat President Robert Mugabe in the country's March election, but not by a big enough margin to avoid a run-off, government sources have claimed in leaks to Western news agencies.

Reuters quoted senior government sources in Harare Wednesday night suggesting that Tsvangirai won 47 percent of votes, and Mugabe 43 percent.

Agence France-Presse cited a source close to the country's electoral commission as saying of the vote for Tsvangirai: "We don't have the final figure yet but at the last count we had between 48 and 50 percent." It quoted a second source as saying the figure was higher than 47 percent but less than 50 percent.

Earlier the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission told the government-run Newsnet service that it had invited the presidential candidates or their agents to a "verification and collation exercise" at 2pm on Thursday. This would pave the way for the announcement of the results.

Tagged:
Copyright © 2008 allAfrica.com. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.

AllAfrica publishes around 400 reports a day from more than 100 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.

Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica. To address comments or complaints, please Contact us.