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Party backs Mugabe for runoff
04/04/2008 18:04 - (SA)
Harare - Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu-PF party on Friday decided President Robert Mugabe should contest a runoff vote against opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai if neither wins a majority in a presidential election.
The party politburo met for around five hours to discuss Mugabe's next move to face the greatest crisis of his 28-year rule.
Zanu-PF lost control of parliament for the first time in elections last Saturday but no results have so far emerged from the presidential vote, prompting opposition suspicions that Mugabe is trying to engineer a way out of the crisis.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says Tsvangirai won an absolute majority in the presidential vote and should be declared president, ending Mugabe's long rule since independence in 1980.
Zanu-PF and independent projections show Tsvangirai winning the presidential vote but falling short of the absolute majority needed to avoid a runoff.
Announcing the Zanu-PF decision, party administration secretary Didymus Mutasa said parliamentary votes would be recounted in disputed areas.
'Re-invasion by Britain'
Earlier, liberation war veterans - a potent force backing Mugabe - attacked the opposition for claiming victory. "These are all provocations against us freedom fighters," veterans' leader Jabulani Sibanda told a press 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.
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 crackdown on the opposition, Tsvangirai spokesperson George Sibotshiwe denied the MDC leader had gone into hiding.
Autocratic presidential powers
"He had a meeting with diplomats today and he is in his office. He has no reason to hide."
A runoff should be held on April 19, three weeks after the elections, but civil society groups said Mugabe plans to extend that to 90 days to buy time to regroup.
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".
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Zimbabwe Special Report
