Authorities began releasing the first results yesterday from Zimbabwe's general election after being accused of sitting on the outcome in a desperate bid to help President Robert Mugabe cling to power.
With riot police deployed in Harare, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union -- Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party were running neck-and-neck after the first six results from 210 parliamentary seats were announced by the electoral commission.
The MDC won the first seat to be declared, the newly-formed constituency of Chegutu West, around 100km west of the capital Harare, commission spokesman Utoile Silaigwana told reporters.
PHOTO: AP
It won two of the next five seats to be declared, while the other three went to the ZANU-PF.
The electoral commission said each party had won 12 parliamentary constituencies out of a total 210 seats. No official results were yet available in the presidential poll. Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa lost his seat.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who has endured beatings by the security services and a treason trial in recent years, is hoping to oust Mugabe in the simultaneous presidential election in the troubled southern African country.
The MDC had on Sunday accused the commission of deliberately sitting on the results in a bid to fix the election in favor of Mugabe who has ruled since independence from Britain in 1980.
"Mugabe has lost this election and they have gone back to the drawing board to try and cook up a result in favour of Robert Mugabe but we will never accept that," MDC General-Secretary Tendai Biti said.
Despite warnings from Mugabe's camp that pre-emptive declarations were tantamount to a coup, the MDC is adamant Tsvangirai has won and it has secured nearly all parliamentary seats in the two main cities of Harare and Bulawayo.
Fearing the kind of deadly violence which followed Kenya's disputed elections in January, the security services have been placed on alert throughout the country.
As people made their work yesterday morning, a correspondent saw groups of riot police armed with batons and shields patrol the streets in the center of the capital although there was no sign of unrest.
While the election was given a generally clean bill of health from a regional observer mission, a network of domestic organizations which had observer status on election day also raised fears the result was being fixed.
After determining the 2002 election was rigged, no representatives from EU countries nor the US have been allowed to oversee the ballot.
African countries have largely refrained from speaking out against a man who has ruled his country since independence from Britain in 1980.
In its report on the election, a team from the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) noted a number of concerns but ultimately declared the vote was a "peaceful and credible expression of the will of the people."
Tsvangirai claimed on Saturday his party had uncovered evidence of widespread vote-rigging, including the names of a million "ghost" voters.
As well as Tsvangirai, Mugabe is up against former finance minister Simba Makoni, who is expected to trail in third.
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