Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) reasserted on Saturday that it had won outright last week's presidential election and signalled its reluctance to go into a second round run-off .

The assertion, made by MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai at a news conference in Harare, came after the MDC told foreign diplomats in Harare on Friday that, "according to official figures published by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC)… Tsvangirai has won the presidential election."

Also on Saturday, the hearing of an MDC petition asking Zimbabwe's High Court to compel the ZEC to publish the results of the presidential election was postponed until Sunday. Before the postponement, armed police at one stage denied MDC lawyers access to the court building.

In a statement explaining the petition, the MDC suggested that figures posted outside polling stations after last Saturday's election show that Tsvangirai beat President Robert Mugabe by "more than 100,000 votes." It said it had filed an urgent application asking the court to direct the ZEC to announce the results within four hours of being served with the court order.

The MDC statement said it contended "there is no reason why ZEC should withhold results seven days after the election. In any case, the MDC contends that the ZEC chairman, George Chiweshe, publicly said last Sunday that he would announce the result within 48 hours, which he said was a far better time frame than other African countries where results sometimes took weeks to be announced…. He has… dismally failed to meet his own deadline."

Agence France-Presse reports that Tsvangirai told Saturday's news conference that in a run-off, "violence will be a new weapon to reverse the people's victory." In a reference to Mugabe's defeat in a referendum on a new constitution, he added, "Zanu PF is preparing a war against the people of Zimbabwe such as we witnessed in 2000."

The Associated Press reported him as adding: "It is therefore unfair and unreasonable for President Mugabe to call a run-off."