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 state's electoral commission announced today.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change called the announcement of the long-delayed result "scandalous daylight robbery".
It says Mr Tsvangirai won more than 50 per cent at the March 29th election and Mr Mugabe's 28-year rule is over.
Chief elections officer Lovemore Sekeramayi said Mr Tsvangirai won 47.9 per cent and Mr Mugabe took 43.2 per cent.
"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. By law, a second round should be held within 21 days of the result.
The result was released after a process by the candidates to check the result, but opposition spokesman Nelson Chamisa said the verification 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 and ZANU-PF."
He said the party executive would decide the next move. Initial MDC estimates had given Mr Tsvangirai 50.3 per cent of the vote although independent and ruling ZANU-PF party projections had suggested he was unlikely to win an outright majority.
A month-long delay to results had raised fears of widespread bloodshed in a country suffering economic ruin that has been ruled by Mugabe since independence from Britain in 1980.
The opposition had accused the government of delaying results to rig the outcome.
Mr 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 Mr Mugabe.
But if he refused to take part, then Mugabe would keep his hold on power.
Mr 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 29th, 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.
On Wednesday, the United States cast doubt on the credibility of the election results and said it was hard to see how a run-off could be fair because of state-orchestrated violence.
"President Mugabe must call off his dogs and cease his security services' and his supporters' attacks on those who are simply trying to express their views," said State Department spokesman Tom Casey.
Mr Mugabe brands his opponents as stooges of Western powers bent on driving him from power.
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 percent - the world's highest.