Tsvangirai 'fails' to secure outright win over Mugabe

Zimbabwe's opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, defeated President Robert Mugabe in the presidential elections, but failed to win enough votes to secure outright victory, the Zimbabwean Election Commission was reported to have announced last night.

The results of the 29 March elections, suggesting that the presidential election will go to a run-off ballot, were announced to the rival candidates more than one month after they took place, according to Agence France-Presse. Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change, which has insisted that according to its information Mr Tsvangirai had won the presidential poll outright with just over 50 per cent, has accused the ruling Zanu-PF party of using the delay to falsify the result.

According to the election commission, which confirmed figures that were leaked on Wednesday by the ruling party, Mr Tsvangirai won 47.8 per cent of the vote, compared to 43.2 per cent for Mr Mugabe, for whom the result spells a humiliating public defeat after 28 years as leader. His party has already had to concede that the opposition won a majority in parliament.

Mr Tsvangirai has called on the President to accept an "honourable exit" and leave power gracefully. But, as reports of the scale of the opposition victory spread, Mr Mugabe dispatched his so-called war veterans into opposition strongholds to search out MDC supporters, who have been beaten and intimidated ahead of a possible second round. According to the MDC, 20 people have been killed.

Mr Tsvangirai's party initially said it would refuse to contest a second-round election, but Mr Tsvangirai has since said that he would run again against Mr Mugabe on condition that international observers from the UN monitor the process. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has backed his call for observers to be deployed. The British Government says that if there is a run-off, it must be in an environment free from intimidation so that all Zimbabweans can exercise their democratic rights.

If Mr Tsvangirai refuses to take part in a run-off, Mr Mugabe would be declared the winner, according to election rules. A run-off should be held within 21 days of a result being announced.

The MDC leader has been outside the country drumming up support in South Africa and elsewhere since the election, whose results were published after verification by the representatives of both candidates. He said yesterday he would return to Zimbabwe after their publication, but stressed a run-off should not be held in "a war situation".

Speaking before the release of the results, he told Channel 4 News that "a run-off under the circumstances, without restoring the electoral environment which is peaceful and is free and fair, is a futile exercise".

He added: "Mugabe has already used the last month for violence against our supporters throughout the country. He has decimated our structures, he has made people refugees in our own country. How do you even hope to run an election in that environment? It is a war situation."

Speaking in Johannesburg on Wednesday, a Tsvangirai spokesman, George Sibotshiwe, warned: "If Robert Mugabe cannot accept the real results now, what's the guarantee he'll accept the real results after a run-off?"

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