President Robert Mugabe's party has failed to secure control of Zimbabwe's parliament in a partial recount of March 29 elections, results showed on Saturday, handing the ruling party its first defeat in 28 years.
Results of a parallel presidential poll have never been released, and Mugabe has been preparing for a run-off against Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Tsvangirai says he won outright and his party has rejected both the recount and any run-off. For the first time since Zimbabwe's independence from Britain in 1980, the MDC wrested a parliamentary majority from Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF in the March 29 poll, triggering a recount of 23 out of 210 constituencies.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said that in the 14 out of 23 seats recounted so far, the original results was confirmed. ZANU-PF had triggered the recount by accusing election officials of taking bribes to undercount votes for Mugabe's party. To win back a parliamentary majority, the ruling party needed to win nine more seats than it did in the first count. Only nine are left to be counted -- but ZANU-PF already won three of those in the first count.
Delays in the recount and in announcing the presidential result have brought growing international pressure on Mugabe, 84, and stoked fears of vote-rigging and bloodshed in a country suffering an economic collapse. The MDC dismissed the recount again on Saturday, regardless of the results.
"Our position remains the same. We don't recognise the recount. It is a charade. The original results stand as far as we are concerned," said an MDC spokesman.
On Friday, Mugabe resorted to strong measures used in the past to keep the opposition in check, in what Human Rights Watch said was a stepped up "campaign of organised terror and torture against opposition activists and ordinary Zimbabweans". The government denies it is waging a violent campaign. Armed riot police raided the MDC's headquarters and detained scores of people in the toughest measures against the opposition since the disputed elections.
The MDC said those detained included supporters who had sought refuge with them after fleeing various parts of the country "where the regime has been unleashing brutal violence".
Police said 215 people had been arrested in the raid, and no one had been charged yet. "We have released the elderly and women with babies. There are about 30 of them. We are still doing profiles for the others and checking with their provinces on whether they have committed any crimes there," a police spokesman said. Former colonial power Britain, which Mugabe blames for Zimbabwe's troubles, has requested a meeting of the U.N. Security Council, the first session on the post-electoral crisis in Zimbabwe, a Western diplomat said.
South Africa's U.N. envoy Dumisani Kumalo said someone from the U.N. secretariat would brief the 15-nation council, probably on Tuesday, on developments in Zimbabwe. The Western diplomat on the council said any action in the form of a statement or resolution was unlikely.
But the meeting would be useful in increasing pressure on Mugabe. Mugabe, a hero of the independence struggle, accuses the opposition of conspiring with Western critics to end his almost three decades in power, which began with high hopes that Zimbabwe would become an African model of democratic and economic success. Today, Zimbabweans face severe shortages of basic goods and a staggering inflation rate of 165,000 percent -- the world's highest.
The International Bar Association said on Saturday the regional Southern African Development Community grouping, the African Union and the United Nations should urgently deploy human rights monitors to independently observe and report on the escalating political violence in Zimbabwe.