Zimbabwe's high court will rule Monday on whether it has the authority to release delayed presidential election results, which the country's opposition says will reveal that President Robert Mugabe has lost control of the country.
The court has begun hearing an opposition application to have the country's presidential election results posted immediately. Sunday's hearing had already been delayed twice. Reporters were not admitted to the hearing.
The actual election took place on March 29, and the opposition believes that Mugabe is trying to buy time to either organize a fightback or rig the election.
On Sunday, the state Sunday Mail newspaper reported that Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party has demanded a recount and a further delay in the release of presidential election results.
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) believes its leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the election outright. The MDC said it won't accept a recount and didn't want a runoff.
"How do you have a vote recount for a result that has not been announced? That is ridiculous," said MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa.
He accused the ZANU-PF of vote fraud, claiming that police have told opposition leads of ballot tampering by the ruling party in recent days.
ZANU-PF claims there are "errors and miscalculations in the compilation of the poll result." It wants the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to delay any announcement because of those "anomalies," the Sunday Mail reported.
"These claims are totally unfounded and they are only meant to justify ZANU-PF's rigging," Chamisa said.
Parliamentary election results showed ZANU-PF losing its parliamentary majority for the first time in Zimbabwe's 28-year history. The opposition and governing party each have 30 senate seats.
Independent observers who have conducted unofficial tallies say that Tsvangirai won more votes than Mugabe -- but not by the 50 per cent plus one margin needed to avoid a runoff.
A runoff is required within 21 days of the election, but some fear Mugabe will impose a 90-day delay to give his security forces a chance to clamp down.
"We are not going to accept the so-called runoff. It is going to be a 'run-over' of Zimbabwe. People are going to be killed," Chamisa said. "We are not so naive a leadership to lead our people to slaughter."
Mugabe has been accused of rigging previous elections. Violence during the 2002 and 2005 elections left scores of Mugabe's opponents dead.
Mugabe became Zimbabwe's leader after his guerrilla army held end white minority rule in 1980, when the country was still known as Rhodesia.
The country is currently an economic basket case, with unemployment of 80 per cent and inflation of 100,000 per cent.
With files from The Associated Press
