Zimbabwean women shop for vegetables in Jambanja market in Seke, 58km
south of Harare, on August 2, 2013. Robert Mugabe looked poised to win a
seventh term in office after romping to victory in parliamentary polls
dismissed as fraudulent by the opposition August 3, 2013. AFP
By AFP
Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe looked poised to win a
seventh term in office after romping to victory in parliamentary polls
dismissed as fraudulent by the opposition, as the head of the UN led
calls for calm.
Full results were expected later Saturday but
Mugabe's ZANU-PF party said it had already won the 140 seats in
parliament required to press ahead with controversial amendments to the
constitution.
"We have already gone beyond two-thirds. It's a super majority," a top party official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
With 186 of 210 constituencies officially counted after Wednesday's disputed poll, Mugabe's party already had a commanding lead, winning 137 seats in parliament.
Party spokesman Rugare Gumbo told AFP: "Our opponents don't know what hit them", adding that Mugabe could win "70 to 75 per cent" in the presidential vote.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has described the vote as a "sham" and a "huge fraud" and his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has vowed not to accept the result, sparking fears of a repeat of bloody violence that marked the aftermath of the 2008 election.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged both rivals to send "clear messages of calm" to supporters as tensions mount.
Ban hopes that the broadly "calm and peaceful atmosphere" of election day "will prevail during the vote counting and throughout the completion of the electoral process," said his spokesman Martin Nesirky.
The influential 15-member southern African bloc SADC also implored "all Zimbabweans to exercise restraint, patience and calm".
All eyes were now on the MDC which was expected to release a statement on Saturday following a two-day meeting.
Ahead of that meeting, top MDC official Roy
Bennett called for a campaign of passive resistance, urging people to
"just bring the country to a standstill".
Observers appeared divided over the conduct of the poll.
The African Union's top poll observer, Olusegun
Obasanjo, said shortly after polling stations closed that the election
had been "peaceful, orderly, free and fair".
The SADC stopped short of declaring it "fair" but said it was "free and peaceful".
"We have said this election is free, indeed very
free," said top SADC election observer Bernard Membe. "We did not say it
was fair ... we didn't want to jump to a conclusion at this point in
time."
Membe met Mugabe Friday to "wish him good luck as he is preparing himself for the inauguration," he told later told journalists.
He said he would try to convince Tsvangirai to concede defeat.
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