Taking the leading position in the general election vote count increases the opposition’s chances of winning the presidential elections against Robert Mugabe. The opposition now has a majority representation in parliament for the first time since the country’s independence in 1980.
Last results published by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) indicate that the opposition MDC has so far won 99 seats against 97 for the ruling party, Zanu-PF, whilst 10 seats have been taken by a breakaway MDC party.
This brings the total seats won by the opposition to 110 out of 210 seats in the parliament house, formally making it the majority party for the first time since the country’s independence. Until now, the opposition trailed the ruling party, Zanu-PF, by 2 seats.
The election vote count has been very close, but these final counts have increased the opposition’s chances of winning the presidential election which was also took place on Saturday.
The ZEC has still not declared the winner of the presidential elections, thus making room for all sorts of rigging speculations.
The organisation in charge of the vote count has asked Zimbabweans to excercise patience with regard to the presidential election results due to the heavy task of counting the votes cast in four different elections in one day by about 6 million voters.
Their inability to schedule a date for the announcement of the results of the presidential elections has raised a lot of questions both from within and outside the country.
The opposition, represented by MDC’s Morgan Tsvangirai and the former finance minister Simba Makoni were strong contenders during the presidential elections. This clearly indicates heavy losses in Mugabe’s support base.
Even the Herald, a partisan newspaper, reported on Wednesday that none of the presidential candidates got the 51% vote required by law to avoid a run-off. Quoting government sources, the report said that a run-off between Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe was inevitable.
