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.

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