Deadlock in presidential results verification
Zimbabwe election officials and the opposition locked horns on Thursday over the outcome of a March 29 presidential poll with the main challenger claiming an outright victory over Robert Mugabe.
Election officials told all-party talks designed to reach agreement on the voting figures that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai had won 47.8% and Mugabe had won 43.2%, according to several sources in the meeting.
But the Movement for Democratic Change party (MDC) in turn presented its own figures claiming Tsvangirai had won 50.3%, just scraping past the threshold needed to avoid a second round run-off, the sources added.
Although the talks were due to resume at 07:00 GMT on Friday, the disagreement paves the way for yet further delays to the final results of a vote that took place nearly five weeks ago.
Tsvangirai, who is currently in South Africa, again insisted in an interview he saw no need for a run-off but refusal to participate in a second round will merely hand victory on a plate to his 84-year-old rival Mugabe.
Meanwhile, in Washington, the US urged Mugabe to "call off his dogs" who are allegedly attacking opposition supporters and to release the presidential election results.
In a daily briefing, State Department deputy spokesperson Tom Casey questioned how credible the results of the March 29 election could be when they have yet to be released and Tsvangirai claims victory.
"There's been an absolutely unconscionable and inexplicable delay in the process of releasing votes. And at this point, I think whatever those results show, they're probably going to have limited credibility," he told reporters.
He also said he believed it would be "almost be impossible to hold" a fair run-off election "given the current campaign of state-orchestrated violence and intimidation" against the opposition in particular and Zimbabweans in general.
"So, we want to see the government of Zimbabwe stop the violence. We want to see results come out that actually reflect what people did on election day, as opposed to what people have done since that time," Casey said.
Asked if Mugabe should quit for Zimbabwe's good, Casey stressed he should stop attacks on Zimbabweans.
He said: "First of all, what we need to have happen is to have President Mugabe call off his dogs and cease his security services and his supporters' attacks on those who are simply trying to express their views peacefully.
"I don't think it's for us to determine who should be the president of Zimbabwe. It's up to the Zimbabwean people." AFP
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