Opposition leader in Zimbabwe says he won presidential election

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- The main opposition leader insisted Tuesday he has won Zimbabwe's presidential election outright and denied persistent reports he was negotiating to ease out President Robert Mugabe, who has led the country from liberation to ruin.

In his first public comments since Saturday's election, Morgan Tsvangirai said he was waiting for an official announcement of the results from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission before he would enter any talks with Mugabe.

A businessman close to the state electoral commission and a lawyer close to the opposition said earlier the two men's aides were negotiating a graceful exit for Mugabe, the country's leader of 28 years. Both sources spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Several diplomats said they had heard similar reports of secret negotiations but could not confirm talks were underway.

"There are no discussions," Tsvangirai said. "Let's wait for ZEC to complete its work, then we can discuss the circumstances that will affect the people."

Deputy information minister Bright Matonga also denied it, telling the British Broadcasting Corp. "There are no negotiations whatsoever, because we are waiting for the presidential results, so why do we need to hold any secret talks?"

Tensions rose as people stayed away from work to await results. A senior police officer, Wayne Bvudzijena, went on state radio to say: "Our forces are more than ready to deal with perpetrators of violence."

Paramilitary police have stepped up patrols in Harare and Bulawayo, the second-largest city, and several roadblocks have been set up at strategic entries to the capital. The opposition has most of its support in urban centers.

Tsvangirai said he had won more than the 50 percent simple majority needed for victory. Mugabe has made no statement about the election.

The businessman said Mugabe has been told he is far behind Tsvangirai in initial results and that he might have to face a runoff. He said the prospect was too humiliating for the 84-year-old Mugabe, and that was why the president was considering ceding power in the Montana-sized country in southern Africa.

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network, a coalition of 38 Zimbabwe civil society organizations, said its random representative sample of polling stations showed Tsvangirai won just over 49 percent of the vote and Mugabe 42 percent. Simba Makoni, a former Mugabe loyalist, trailed at about 8 percent.

In Washington, Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the National Security Council, said "it's clear the people of Zimbabwe have voted for change. It's time for the Zimbabwean Electoral Commission to confirm the results we have all seen from the local polling stations and respected NGOs."

At his news conference, Tsvangirai spoke as if he already had been declared president:

"For years we have trod a journey of hunger, pain, torture and brutality," he said. "Today we face a new challenge of governing and rehabilitating our beloved country, the challenge of giving birth to a new Zimbabwe founded on restoration not retribution, on love not war."

As Zimbabweans wait for the returns, "our country is on a precipice, on a cliff edge," said Tsvangirai, head of the Movement for Democratic Change.

The situation remained fragile and could deteriorate without a Mugabe resignation.

Martin Rupiya, a military analyst at South Africa's Institute for Strategic Studies and a former lieutenant-colonel in the Zimbabwe army, said he had heard of the military's involvement in negotiations for Mugabe to step down.

The election result "has compelled the military, the hawkish wing and the other moderate, to begin to reconsider accommodating the opposition," he said. "Because of the nature of the wins they have been forced to reassess."

Political analyst John Makumbe said he had learned from military sources that they would respect the results of the elections. The day before the elections, security chiefs had warned they would not serve anybody but Mugabe and would not tolerate an opposition victory.

The electoral commission has released results for 182 of the 210 parliamentary seats -- giving Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change 92 seats, including five for a breakaway faction, to 90 for Mugabe's ruling party. At least six Cabinet ministers have lost their seats, according to the official results.

The commission has offered no results in the presidential race.

Zimbabweans still fear that Mugabe may declare himself winner, as he has in previous elections that observers said were marked by rigging, violence and intimidation.

Should he consider stepping down, he would have to weigh the concerns of those who have profited from his patronage, a group that includes top military leaders, party officials and business people. They receive mining concessions, construction contracts and preferential licenses to run transport companies and other businesses.

Marwick Khumalo, head of the Pan-African Parliament observer mission, told South African radio that leading members of Mugabe's party were contemplating defeat with trepidation.

"I was talking to some of the bigwigs in the ruling party and they also are concerned about the possibility of a change of guard," he said. "ZANU-PF has actually been institutionalized in the lives of Zimbabweans, so it is not easy for anyone within the sphere of the ruling party to accept that 'Maybe we might be defeated or might have been defeated."'

At independence, Mugabe was hailed for his policies of racial reconciliation and development that brought education and health to millions who had been denied those services under colonial rule. Zimbabwe's economy thrived on exports of food, minerals and tobacco.

The unraveling began when Mugabe ordered the often-violent seizures of white-owned commercial farms, ostensibly to return them to the landless black majority. Instead, Mugabe replaced a white elite with a black one, giving the farms to relatives, friends and cronies who allowed cultivated fields to be taken over by weeds.

Today, a third of the population depends on imported food handouts. Another third has fled the country as economic and political refugees, and 80 percent is jobless. Life expectancy has fallen from 60 years to 35, and shortages of food, medicine, water, electricity and fuel are chronic.

The economy is in dramatically worse shape than in past elections. Former Mugabe loyalist and Finance Secretary Simba Makoni, who finished a distant third according to the independent projection, drew open support from other leaders in the ruling party, bringing divisions among the elite into the open.