Opposition chief beats Mugabe

Harare: Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai beat President Robert Mugabe in the presidential election but faces a run-off vote after failing to win an outright majority, the electoral body said on Friday.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) called the announcement of the long-delayed result "scandalous daylight robbery". It says Tsvangirai won more than 50 per cent at the March 29 election and Mugabe's 28-year rule is over.

Chief Elections Officer Lovemore Sekeramayi said Tsvangirai won 47.9 per cent with Mugabe, who has ruled since independence from Britain, on 43.2 per cent. Independent Simba Makoni, a ruling party defector, took 8.3 per cent.

Second election

"Since no candidate has received the majority of the total votes cast a second election shall be held on a date to be announced by the commission," Sekeramayi said. The rules say it should be held within 21 days, but there has been talk that could be extended.

The US and former colonial power Britain questioned the credibility of the official results more than one month after the election and voiced concern over how fair a run-off could be. Opposition spokesman Nelson Chamisa said the verification of the votes had not been done properly.

"This whole thing is a scandal, scandalous daylight robbery and everyone knows that," he said. "We won this election outright, and yet what we are being given here as the outcome are some fudged figures meant to save Mugabe."

He said the party executive would decide the next move. Initial MDC estimates had given Tsvangirai 50.3 per cent of the vote although independent and Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party projections had suggested he was unlikely to win an outright majority.

The delay of results had raised fears of widespread bloodshed in a country suffering economic ruin. The opposition had accused the government of holding up the results to rig the outcome and intimidate its supporters.

Uncertainty

Despite the continued uncertainty, analysts said investors would welcome the fact that official results were finally out.

"It is the sort of news that would ultimately encourage investors," said Richard Segal, Africa strategist at Renaissance Capital. "Investors hope they are seeing the beginning of the end but they know that might take weeks or months."

Tsvangirai has raised doubts over whether he would take part in a run-off and has been out of the country since shortly after the vote, trying to keep up international pressure on Mugabe.

But if he refused to take part, then Mugabe would keep his hold on power.

Tsvangirai has suggested he could only contest a second round if it was monitored by United Nations-led foreign observers. The main international observer group during the first round was from Zimbabwe's neighbours.

The opposition accuses the ruling ZANU-PF party, which lost its parliamentary majority in a parallel vote on March 29, of a campaign of violence and intimidation ahead of a possible second round and says 20 of its members have been killed.

The government denies that and accuses the MDC of political attacks, branding his opponents as stooges of the West.

The US said it was hard to see how a run-off could be fair.

Obscured results

"It's pretty hard to see how there can be a meaningful run-off in Zimbabwe when the government has done everything it could to both delay and obscure the results," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said in Washington.

A spokesperson for Britain's Foreign Office said: "Without an immediate end to violence and the introduction of a wider range of international monitors and in much greater numbers than were present for the first, no second round could be free and fair."

Zimbabwe's economic collapse, for which Mugabe's critics blame his policies, has sent millions of refugees into neighbouring countries to escape severe food, fuel and foreign currency shortages and inflation of 165,000 per cent - the world's highest.