Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) chief elections officer Lovemore Sekeramayi said Tsvangirai polled 1 195 562 votes or 47.9 percent of total valid votes cast to defeat Mugabe who polled 1 079 730 ballots or 43.2 percent of total votes cast.
Former finance minister Simba Makoni, who stood as an independent, took 207 470 votes or 8.3 percent of total ballots cast while another independent candidate Langton Towungana polled 14 503 votes equal to 0.6 percent of total votes cast.
Sekeramayi said: Since no candidate has received enough majority of the total number of votes cast, the provision of Section 110 of the Electoral Act applies and a second election shall be on a date to be advised by the commission.
Accordingly Tsvangirai Morgan and Mugabe Robert Gabriel are eligible to contest in the second election.
According to the electoral law, the second ballot must be held 21 days after official results have been declared, meaning that Zimbabweans return to the polls on May 23 to conclude what is turning out to be one of the longest elections in history.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party had insisted that its leader Tsvangirai won the vote outright and there was no need for a run-off election.
Tsvangirai’s agent, Chris Mbanga, said the MDC was unhappy that the ZEC had gone ahead to release results without reaching agreement with the opposition party.
However, Mbanga would not immediately say whether the MDC – which has publicly threatened to boycott a run-off election – would keep its word and stay out of the poll.
We are not happy, Mbanga said. I am going to report to the national executive council (of MDC) and we will decide from there.
Mugabe would be declared automatic winner if Tsvangirai pulls out of the second round race.
Tsvangirai’s MDC won 99 seats in a parallel parliamentary poll while a faction of the party led by Arthur Mutambara took 10 seats to bring the total number of seats controlled by the opposition party to 109 out of the 210-member House of Assembly.
An independent candidate won one seat while ZANU PF, which had controlled Parliament since Zimbabwe’s 1980 independence took 97 seats. Three constituencies where voting could not take place will hold by-elections at a yet unknown date.
The ZEC’s failure to release presidential election results had touched off a tense stalemate that analysts feared could lead to violence and bloodshed, while the United States has threatened sanctions over delays to issue results.
The MDC has accused Mugabe of delaying results to use the time to unleash violence and terror on voters in bid to cow them to support him in the second round run-off ballot.
The MDC says at least 20 of its supporters have been murdered while another 5 000 have been displaced in the violence, which the opposition party has described as a war being waged by state security forces and ZANU PF militants against Zimbabweans. — ZimOnline
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