HARARE—Zimbabwe's ruling party on Friday backed President Robert Mugabe to fight an expected runoff vote against opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, ending uncertainty over whether he would try to extend his long grip on power.
A senior party official said the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission would schedule such a vote, suggesting it would be changed from the statutory three weeks after election results.
Civil society organisations charged on Friday that Mugabe was trying to delay the re-run for three months to give him time to regroup and ensure victory. ZANU-PF agreed on its strategy after a five-hour meeting to discuss the biggest crisis of Mugabe's 28-year-old rule.
ZANU-PF lost control of parliament for the first time in last Saturday's election but no official results have yet been released from the presidential vote.
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says it won the presidential vote and he should be declared president, ending Mugabe's uninterrupted rule since independence in 1980.
ZANU-PF and independent projections say that although Tsvangirai has won, he will fall short of the absolute majority needed to avoid a runoff.
"We deliberated the rerun, there will be a rerun if ZEC (Zimbabwe Electoral Commission) compels us," said party administration secretary Didymus Mutasa.
Mutasa said parliamentary votes would be recounted in disputed areas—an apparent bid to redress the balance in ZANU-PF's favour. He said there had been bribery of electoral officials.
The long delay in announcing presidential votes has fuelled opposition suspicions that Mugabe is trying to engineer a way out of results that went against him.
Mugabe faces deep discontent as Zimbabwe suffers the world's highest inflation rate of more than 100,000 percent, a virtually worthless currency and severe food and fuel shortages.
Reuters
Below are official senate—the upper house of parliament—election results announced by Zimbabwe's electoral commission.
Ruling ZANU-PF————21*
Opposition MDC————18
Breakaway MDC faction—4
* Includes one uncontested seat.
A total of 60 seats are being contested.
No official results have been published yet from the presidential election, also held on March 29.
(MDC—Movement for Democratic Change)
Earlier, liberation war veterans—a potent force backing former guerrilla leader Mugabe—attacked the opposition for claiming victory. "These are all provocations against us freedom fighters," veterans' leader Jabulani Sibanda told a news conference.
He said the veterans would repel any attempt by white farmers to reclaim properties seized by Mugabe. "It now looks like these elections were a way to open for the re-invasion of this country (by the British)," he said.
The state-owned Herald newspaper said there were reports of white farmers threatening to grab back land.
Mutasa also warned the farmers.
"We are getting reports that some white farmers are going around the country threatening the new farmers. They should stop that. They will be dealt with in terms of the law."
Critics say the handing of the farms to inexperienced farmers and Mugabe cronies is a key reason for Zimbabwe's economic collapse.
Impatience
There is increasing impatience in Zimbabwe at a six-day wait for the results of the presidential election.
The MDC said it would ask the High Court to order the immediate release of the results.
Amid rumours that security forces planned to crack down on the opposition, Tsvangirai spokesman George Sibotshiwe denied the MDC leader had gone into hiding.
"He had a meeting with diplomats today and he is in his office. He has no reason to hide."
Analysts believe Mugabe will try to ensure victory in the second vote by using militias and powerful security forces to cow MDC supporters in the interval before the runoff.
A statement by civil society organisations in Harare said they had "reliable knowledge" that Mugabe intended to extend the interval before a runoff "using disputed and autocratic presidential powers".
The statement read by human rights lawyer Lovemore Madhuku expressed "gravest concern at the unacceptable delay in the release of poll results".
Riot police patrols were out in central Harare on Friday and two foreign journalists were arrested on Thursday night for reporting the elections without accreditation.
The White House said it was "troubled" by the arrests and called for a swift resolution of the post-election stalemate.
"We're troubled by the reports we're hearing on the ground," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters at the NATO summit in Bucharest. "Journalists and NGOs should be permitted to go about their business."
The European Union called on electoral authorities to release the results as soon as possible and protested over the arrest of journalists.
Madhuku, of rights group National Constitutional Assembly, denied reports that the law required the electoral commission to issue presidential election results by Friday.
"There is no such law. It is being said by non-lawyers, non-experts," he said.
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