Zimbabwe's state paper predicts presidential runoff

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- President Robert Mugabe's long-ruling party lost its parliamentary majority Wednesday, bolstering opposition claims that impoverished Zimbabweans voted for change in this struggling southern African nation.

The opposition also claimed victory for leader Morgan Tsvan­girai in Saturday's presidential vote, but the state-controlled newspaper predicted a runoff -- the first official admission that Mugabe, the nation's leader of 28 years, had not won re-election.

The Movement for Democratic Change expressed confidence Tsvangirai could win a runoff with an even larger margin, but there were fears Mugabe would roll out every weapon in his considerable political and government arsenal to stay in power.

Election observer Imani Countess of the Washington-based TransAfrica Forum told The Associated Press that the most frightening conversation she has had in Zimbabwe was with a senior official of the ruling ZANU-PF party discussing a runoff.

"He was very calm and jovial but made it very, very clear that if there was a runoff, that ZANU would use all the state organs at its disposal to ensure victory, and that is very, very worrisome," she said.

Countess, whose group promotes Africa's interests in the United States, said the powerful elite that has benefited from Mugabe's patronage since independence from Britain had a vested interest in ensuring he wins.

The 84-year-old Mugabe, who hasn't commented on the voting, has been accused of stealing previous elections that Western observers said were marred by violence, fraud and intimidation.

This election was different because local results were posted outside polling stations for the first time. That let independent monitors and party representatives make tallies independent of the official electoral commission, which reported no figures in the presidential race while slowly releasing results in parliamentary contests, including losses by eight Cabinet ministers.

Official results posted Wednesday said 200 of parliament's 210 had been seats decided, with the opposition winning 105, Mugabe's party 94 and an independent candidate one. Even winning the remaining 10 seats, including three to be decided in later by-elections, would leave ZANU-PF short of the 106 seats needed for a majority in the legislature.

Tendai Biti, secretary-general of the opposition MDC, said the party's compilation of local returns gave Tsvangirai 50.3 percent of the votes in the presidential contest, against 43.8 percent for Mugabe. Simba Makoni, a former ruling party stalwart whose defection brought an internal rift over Mugabe's leadership into the open, got about 8 percent.

"We maintain that we have won the presidential election outright without the need for a runoff," Biti said at a news conference. But he added the opposition would take part in any runoff ordered -- and expected to do even better in a two-way race.

But the figures Biti gave at the news conference did not back up his contention that Tsvangirai won. Biti said 2,382,243 votes were cast, and Tsvangirai got 1,171,079, which is 49 percent. Contacted soon after the news conference, Biti could not explain the discrepancy.

The constitution provides for a runoff within three weeks of the election if no candidate wins more than 50 percent plus one vote.

The Herald newspaper, which reflects government and ZANU-PF thinking, said Wednesday that "the pattern of results in the presidential election shows that none of the candidates will garner more than 50 percent of the vote, forcing a rerun."

It did not say where its information came from. The electoral commission has issued only parliamentary results, and stretched those out over four days in an apparent attempt to buy the ruling party time to work out its next move.

"The delay in announcing the outcome must be seen as a deliberate and calculated tactic," British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told lawmakers in London on Wednesday.

He praised Tsvangirai's behavior as "statesmanlike," but stopped short of backing opposition claims of victory.

Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga called the opposition's claim "irresponsible" and "mischievous."

"They have got to be very careful," Matonga told British Broadcasting Corp. "They think they can provoke ZANU-PF, and the police and the army."

The government warned previously that premature victory announcements by the opposition would be tantamount to a coup attempt.

Tensions have been rising as people stay away from work to await results.

Paramilitary police stepped up patrols in Harare and Bulawayo, the second-largest city, and checked vehicles at roadblocks leading to the capital. Police ordered beer halls and stores selling liquor to shut early Tuesday night. The opposition has most of its support in urban centers.

Independent monitors and governments, including the United States, have indicated they believe the opposition won the election, though no figures reflect the landslide victory claimed by the opposition the day after voting.

"But it is, effectively, a landslide if you consider the many obstacles put in the way of the opposition," said Chris Maroleng, a senior researcher at South Africa's Institute for Strategic Studies.

State media campaigned for Mugabe and his loyalists while vilifying the opposition. Opposition leaders charged that they were denied copies of voter rolls allegedly inflated with dead and fictitious people, that new districts were drawn up to favor Mugabe's rural power base, and that police were posted inside polling stations to intimidate people.

Countess, the election monitor with TransAfrica, said she had been told that behind-the-scenes negotiations between Mugabe's and Tsvangirai's parties on providing a graceful exit for the president had failed.

The government and opposition denied there were such talks, but Countess said there had been "quiet conversations going on" according to ZANU-PF officials and religious leaders receiving information from highly placed people in both camps.

"My understanding is that Morgan Tsvangirai refused the idea of a government of national unity, because they believe they have won," she said.

In South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace laureate, called for Mugabe to accept defeat.

"We hope the transition will be a peaceful one, relatively peaceful, and that Mr. Mugabe will step down with dignity, gracefully," Tutu said.

Tutu said Mugabe should have given up power years ago.

"He did a fantastic job, and it's such a great shame, because he had a wonderful legacy. If he had stepped down 10 or so years ago he would be held in very, very high regard," Tutu said.

Zimbabwe's strong economy, and support for Mugabe, began unraveling in 2000 after he ordered the seizure of white-owned commercial farms to turn over to blacks. The farms went mainly to Mugabe's friends, relatives and cronies who have not used the land profitably, if at all.

The country was once a major supplier of food to the region, but a third of Zimbabweans now depend on international food aid and 80 percent are jobless. The country suffers shortages of food, medicine, water, power and fuel.