| Home | Politics | Human Rights | Water | Economy | Education | Sci & Tech | Culture | Sport |
29 June, 2008
Zimbabwe election officials have begun announcing results from the presidential poll, saying they indicate a landslide win for Robert Mugabe.
News agencies quoted them as saying results from eight of the country's 10 provinces showed Mr Mugabe winning all of them by huge margins.
He was the only candidate to run after the opposition boycotted the vote amid reports of state-sponsored violence.
He is due to be sworn in for a new five-year term as president shortly.
Crowds are gathering for the ceremony at Mr Mugabe's State House residence in the capital, Harare.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was invited to the ceremony as a "gesture of engagement", but he rejected it as "meaningless".
"How can the party give its blessing to something it has rejected?" an MDC spokesman was quoted by AFP news agency as saying.
Spoiled ballots
The results also showed a high number of spoiled ballot papers.
For example in the opposition stronghold of Bulawayo, Mr Mugabe is said to have won about 21,000 votes, Mr Tsvangirai some 13,000, while more than 9,000 ballots were spoiled.
Mr Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), announced he was pulling out of the election last Sunday citing state-sponsored violence and intimidation.
But his name remained on ballot papers after Zimbabwe's electoral authorities refused to accept his decision.
The BBC's Peter Biles, in Johannesburg, says that having attempted to consolidate his position with the ceremony, Mr Mugabe is expected to fly to Egypt to attend an African Union summit which opens on Monday.
The reaction of Zimbabwe's neighbours in southern Africa will be crucial, our correspondent says.
An observer team from the Pan-African Parliament on Sunday called on regional grouping Sadc and the African Union to facilitate talks between the government and opposition.
The election observers have called for fresh elections to be held, saying the vote was not free or fair.
International outrage
Earlier, the former Archbishop of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu, urged the international community to intervene in Zimbabwe - by force if necessary.
He said he would support the deployment of a UN force to restore peace in the country.
Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr programme, Archbishop Tutu also said that African Union leaders should refuse to recognise Robert Mugabe as legitimate president of Zimbabwe.
"If you were to have a unanimous voice, saying quite clearly to Mr Mugabe... you are illegitimate and we will not recognise your administration in any shape or form - I think that would be a very, very powerful signal and would really strengthen the hand of the international community."
There has also been international outrage at events in Zimbabwe.
US President George W Bush on Saturday instructed US officials to come up with new sanctions against Zimbabwe, and said the US would press for strong action by the UN.
The state-owned Sunday Mail newspaper in Harare said President Mugabe was "a man on an assignment" and that "assignment is yet to be completed; hence his continued stay in office".
In interviews published in British newspapers on Sunday, Mr Tsvangirai said he would push for negotiations with Mr Mugabe on a new constitution and fresh elections.
"We have the power to control parliament, and that is recognised even by Mugabe's Zanu-PF... We must force a transitional agreement for a set time-frame and work towards a new constitution for Zimbabwe," he told the Mail on Sunday.
"I am confident we can achieve that if international pressure keeps up," he added.
In a separate interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Tsvangirai said it was possible that Mr Mugabe could remain as a ceremonial head of state.
"I don't think it's inconceivable for such an arrangement to include him, depending, of course, on the details of what is being proposed and what are the arrangements," he said.
Mr Mugabe came second to Mr Tsvangirai in the first round of the presidential vote in March.
Since then, the MDC says some 86 of its supporters have been killed and 200,000 forced from their homes by militias loyal to Zanu-PF.
The government blames the MDC for the violence. -Story from BBC NEWS