HARARE: Zimbabwe’s main opposition party celebrated crucial byelection victories in the capital on Monday, billing them as a springboard for mass action to topple President Robert Mugabe.

“This is only the beginning of the struggle to recapture the stolen presidential poll, so that the sovereignty of the people of Zimbabwe is consolidated,” the Movement for Democratic Change’s president, Morgan Tsvangirai, said after his party’s two victories.

“In the days ahead we shall be working frantically to put in place strategies that will rid the country of the crises that stem largely from the illegitimacy of the Mugabe regime.”

Political tensions rose across the country, as the MDC’s vice-president, Gibson Sibanda, was arrested in Bulawayo and Harare was surrounded by armed roadblocks. Extra army units guarded Mr Mugabe’s official residence.

Despite unprecedented state violence, widespread intimidation and evidence of massive vote-rigging, the opposition retained its parliamentary seats in two townships of Harare, where the ruling party holds none of the 19 seats.

“We won! They used every trick in the book but they still could not defeat us,” an exultant MDC supporter, Derek Madharani, said. “We are celebrating in the streets. People are so happy. We know the army will come and beat us tonight, but we don’t care.”

Mr Mugabe’s party, with 95 seats, enjoys a comfortable majority in the 150-strong parliament and victory in the two byelections would have taken it a step closer towards the two-thirds majority it needs to enact constitutional changes.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.