Zimbabwe's opposition made a clean sweep in the elections of all seats in the capital and big towns, final election results showed yesterday.
There are 19 seats in the capital, Harare, while the second-largest city, Bulawayo, has eight. In the central city of Gweru, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won the two urban seats, as it did in Kwekwe, Mutare and Masvingo, where it overwhelmingly won all the urban and some of the surrounding rural seats.
In the western Matebeleland provinces, it won all the seats except for one rural constituency.
The predominantly Ndebele-speaking people of Matebeleland suffered atrocities committed by government troops during the early 1980s, when President Mugabe's ZANU-PF government was in conflict with the then opposition, ZAPU, led by the late Mr Joshua Nkomo.
The ruling party won most of the rural constituencies. Rural and farm workers were the main victims of a brutal campaign of pre-election violence and intimidation, which ran alongside the invasion of hundreds of white-owned farms by veterans of Zimbabwe's 1970s liberation war and ZANU-PF supporters.
At least 32 people were killed and hundreds wounded during the violence, which began in February.
Eleven members of President Mugabe's government, including three ministers, lost their seats. But they could return to parliament if the President appoints them among the 30 additional deputies he is empowered to name in addition to the 120 elected members.
Among those defeated were the Justice Minister, Emmerson Mnangagwa; the Interior Minister, Dumiso Dabengwa; and the Mines, Environment and Tourism Minister, Simon Khaya Moyo. The Minister of National Affairs, Employment and Co-operatives, Thenjiwe Lesaba; the Minister of State for Women's Concerns, Oppah Muchinguri; and the Planning Commissioner, Richard Hove, were also voted out.
Defeated deputy ministers included: Obert Mpofu (industry and trade), Sikhanyiso Ndlovu (higher education and technology), Tony Gara (local administration and housing) and Cain Mathema (rural and water resources).