Robert Mugabe's party demands vote recount and delay

Zimbabwean Robert Mugabe’s ruling party demanded a vote recount and a further delay in the release of results from Zimbabwe’s presidential election, the state Sunday Mail newspaper reported, prompting outrage from the opposition party.

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) — which claims its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, won the March 29 presidential ballot outright — said it would not accept a recount, did not want a runoff and pressed ahead with legal attempts to force the publication of the results.

“How do you have a vote recount for a result that has not been announced? That is ridiculous,” opposition spokesman Nelson Chamisa said.

He accused the ruling ZANU-PF party of vote fraud, saying that police had told opposition leaders that the ruling party has been tampering with ballots since early last week.

“These claims are totally unfounded and they are only meant to justify ZANU-PF’s rigging,” he said.

The Sunday Mail quoted a letter from a lawyer representing ZANU-PF calling for a recount because of “errors and miscalculations in the compilation of the poll result.”

The party also asked the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to defer announcement of the presidential election results because of the “anomalies,” the paper reported.

The report came a day after Tsvangirai called on Mugabe to step down.

Eight after the election, the commission has yet to announce the results.

Unofficial by independent monitors show Tsvangirai won more votes than Mugabe — but fewer than the 50 percent plus one vote required to avoid a runoff.

Opposition lawyer Andrew Makoni said a high court judge was expected to rule at 2pm on an urgent petition demanding publication of the election results.

He said the judge had only just received the submission from the electoral commission justifying the delay and needed time to consider it.

Armed prevented opposition lawyers from entering the court on Saturday but there was no police presence yesterday.

The MDC maintained its resistance to a runoff.

“We are not going to accept the so-called runoff. It is going to be a ‘run-over’ of Zimbabwe. People are going to be killed,” Chamisa said.