Zanu-PF 'ready' for run-off
2008-04-03 12:32
Special Report
Four Chinese men face deportation from Zimbabwe after they were arrested for killing more than 40 tortoises for meat, a report says.
A dusty road leads to the village of Wedza, where veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war eke out a meagre living on their farm cooperative, which after a promising start now brings only despair.
Harare - Robert Mugabe's ruling party is ready for a presidential election run-off between the veteran Zimbabwean leader and his archrival Morgan Tsvangirai, a government spokesman says.
"Zanu-PF is ready for a run-off, we are ready for a resulting victory," Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga said.
Matonga said the party had "let the president down" and had not diverted enough energy into its campaign.
"In terms of strategy, we only applied 25% of our energy into this campaign ... That (the run-off) is when we are going to unleash the other 75% that we did not apply in the first case."
Matonga said Mugabe, who had not been seen in public since he cast his vote in Saturday's polls, was "very much alive and kicking and is anxiously awaiting the results as well".
Delay 'fuels' suspicions
The electoral commission announced overnight that Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) had lost its parliamentary majority to Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
The delay in announcing the presidential result had fuelled suspicions that the 84-year-old leader was seeking tamper with the results and cling to the seat he had held since Zimbabwe gained independence from Britain in 1980.
Frustrated with the silence from the commission, the opposition MDC pre-emptively released its own results on Wednesday indicating that Tsvangirai had won the presidency outright with more than 50% of votes.
State media had said Mugabe now faced the likelihood of a run-off against Tsvangirai, who Mugabe recently pledged would never rule in his lifetime.
- AFP