April 04, 2008	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 26, 1429

HARARE, April 3: Zimbabwe’s election results were further delayed on Thursday as President Robert Mugabe called a meeting of his top leadership to discuss how to face the biggest crisis of his 28-year rule.

Amid uncertainty over whether Mugabe will be able to hang on to power, authorities said results of elections to the upper house of parliament – which must precede the presidential results – had been delayed by “logistical problems.”

They had been expected on Thursday.

Zimbabweans have been waiting since last Saturday to hear whether Mugabe was defeated in the vote, as the Movement for Democratic Change opposition says based on its own tallies.

The opposition, and many Zimbabweans, believe the unprecedented delay in announcing results masks attempts by Mugabe’s entourage to find a way out of the crisis.

Ruling ZANU-PF party sources said Mugabe would chair a leadership meeting called for Friday.

Senior ZANU-PF official Didymus Mutasa declined to comment on whether the party was planning for a runoff against MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, although another official said earlier it was ready for a vote and would win it.

“All I can confirm is there is a politburo meeting. That’s enough, that’s all I can say at the moment,” said Mutasa, the party secretary for administration.Analysts said Mugabe was believed to have convened the leadership to discuss their next move after ZANU-PF’s first defeat in a parliamentary election and to gauge how much support there was for him running in a second round.

Party projections show Mugabe failing to win a majority for the first time since he took power after independence from Britain in 1980.

But they also show Tsvangirai falling short of the required absolute majority to avoid a second round.

Political commentator John Makumbe, a fierce Mugabe critic, said there was concern that the party would try to engineer a way of staying in power despite election defeat.

All the signs are that Mugabe, a liberation war leader still respected in Africa, is in the worst trouble of his rule after facing an unprecedented challenge in the elections because of the collapse of the Zimbabwean economy.

Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga said earlier the party was ready for a second round, in the strongest indication yet that Mugabe intended to stand, despite calls by the opposition to concede defeat and avoid embarrassment.

“From ZANU-PF’s perspective, we are very confident that we’ve got the numbers, when it comes to a re-run, we’re ready for that second round, and we are confident that President Robert Mugabe will win this time,” Matonga said.

The MDC says Tsvangirai won an absolute majority and no re-run is necessary.

No clear winner

In an interview with Reuters Television, Matonga added: “We think, and it is my assumption...there may not be a clear winner of the presidential one (vote) and it points to a re-run.”

In his first public appearance since the March 29 election, Mugabe met the head of an African Union election observer team at his residence in Harare, state television reported.

Asked about his meeting with Mugabe, Sierra Leone’s former president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah told ZTV: “He looked very relaxed, and is of the view that the problems of the country will be resolved amicably, and he is very relaxed about it.”

Final results of the election for parliament’s lower house showed the MDC won 99 seats. ZANU-PF won 97 and a breakaway MDC faction won 10. One independent candidate won a seat.

Mugabe faces deep discontent as Zimbabwe suffers with the world’s highest inflation rate of more than 100,000 per cent, a virtually worthless currency and severe food and fuel shortages.

Hopes of a peaceful transition to power in Zimbabwe helped lift neighbouring South Africa’s rand currency on Thursday as investors saw a positive impact on the region.

“I think that (Zimbabwe) certainly has the most influence on the rand at the moment,” a Johannesburg-based trader said. “So there is potential for the rand to strengthen further if there is a peaceful transition.”

Jonathan Moyo, Mugabe’s former information minister who is now an independent in parliament, said authorities were not coping well with defeat. Security chiefs, who have said they would not accept an opposition victory, were anxious.

“You have generals who unwisely, or rather foolishly, told the world that they would only salute one candidate, who happened to have lost the election,” he told reporters.—Reuters