No majority for Mugabe party in Zimbabwe recount

By MacDonald Dzirutwe

HARARE (Reuters) - President Robert Mugabe's party has failed to win control of Zimbabwe's parliament in a partial recount of the March 29 election, results showed on Saturday, confirming the ruling party's first defeat in 28 years.

Results of a parallel presidential poll have not been released, but the parliamentary defeat increases pressure on Mugabe ahead of an expected run-off against Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) said it did not know when the presidential results would be published. It hoped to compile the recount statistics by Monday and then invite candidates to verify results before making them public.

Tsvangirai says he won outright and his party has rejected both the recount and any run-off as an attempt by Mugabe to steal the election.

For the first time since Zimbabwe's independence from Britain in 1980, the MDC wrested a parliamentary majority from Mugabe's ZANU-PF in the election four weeks ago, triggering a recount in 23 out of 210 constituencies.

The commission had ordered the recount after ZANU-PF accused election officials of taking bribes to undercount votes for Mugabe and his ruling party and committing other electoral fraud. A number of election officials have been arrested.

The ZEC said there were no changes in the 18 out of 23 seats recounted so far. To win back a parliamentary majority, the ruling party needed to win nine more seats than it did in the first count, which is no longer possible.

Delays in the recount and in announcing the presidential result have led to growing international criticism of Mugabe, 84, and stoked fears of vote-rigging and bloodshed in a country suffering an economic collapse.