ZIMBABWE:RECOUNTS OF disputed seats in Zimbabwe's general election have confirmed the main opposition grouping, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was the winner of the contest.
The chairman for the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), Justice George Chiweshe, said on Saturday that after recounting 18 of the 23 contested constituencies, the majority of which were originally awarded to opposition candidates, there was no change to the initial results.
This means that with only five constituencies of the recount to finalise, President Robert Mugabe's ruling regime has failed to secure enough seats to overturn the opposition's gains.
The ZEC also indicated the result from the March 29th presidential poll, which it has steadfastly refused to release until the partial recount was complete, was also imminent.
Addressing a Harare press conference yesterday, Justice Chiweshe said that, after the recount process was officially verified and correlated today, the four candidates would be invited to hear the eagerly awaited announcement.
"The process of feeding the recounted statistics into our systems has already begun. We trust that . . . this process will have been concluded.
"Immediately thereafter, the returning officer (chief elections officer) will invite the four presidential candidates or their agents to a verification and collation exercise leading to the announcement of the results of the presidential election," he said.
Confirmation the MDC and a breakaway faction have managed to retain their parliamentary majority - the original result showed they won by 110 seats to 97 - is a historic moment for Zimbabwe's opposition.
Until last month's general election, the ruling Zanu-PF party had controlled the lower house since independence in 1980, and Mr Mugabe had used his party's majority position to push through laws that supported his regime.
Now Mr Mugabe's parliamentary stranglehold is officially broken, all eyes will turn to the release of the official presidential result. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai claims he has won the position outright.
The Zanu-PF party has said it believes a second-round run-off between its leader and Mr Tsvangirai is the most likely outcome of the presidential race, as neither of the two leading candidates secured the 50 per cent plus one vote needed for outright victory.
Speculation has been rife that the delay in releasing the presidential result was orchestrated by the ZEC to allow the ruling regime's henchmen time to intimidate Zimbabwe's opposition supporters ahead of the presidential run-off.
Violence against supporters of the MDC has risen dramatically over the four weeks since the poll and, to date, the MDC claims 15 of its supporters, including a five-year-old boy, have been killed in violence it attributes to militia loyal to the ruling regime.
Last Friday, up to 300 refugees, including elderly women and young babies, were arrested along with MDC staff at party headquarters in Harare.
MDC lawyers said yesterday they were still being denied access to about 185 of those who were detained.
The United States top envoy for Africa, Jendayi Frazer, who is touring the region to press leaders to take a tougher stance against Mr Mugabe called for international intervention yesterday.
"When a government deploys its military - and its police and its intelligence operatives, as well as mobilising youth militia - then the international community has a responsibility to step in and to try to stop that government from beating its own population," the assistant US secretary of state for African affairs told reporters in Zambia.