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ZANU-PF retains 2 seats in MDC demanded recount

ZANU-PF retains 2 seats in MDC demanded recount
By George Chellah in Harare, Zimbabwe
Thursday April 24, 2008 [04:00]

ZIMBABWE'S ruling ZANU-PF has retained two seats in the House of Assembly and Senate respectively, the latest results from the vote recount have revealed. The recount exercise in Goromonzi West Constituency is one of the two vote recounts that were demanded by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

According to the first batch of vote-recount results that were released on Tuesday night, ZANU-PF retained the House of Assembly seat after it managed to secure to 6,194 votes compared to the MDC-Morgan Tsvangirai faction's 5,931.

The latest figures also revealed that the election results for the Goromonzi West Senate seat remained unchanged at 5,672.

Apart from the recount of two seats as requested by MDC, the ZANU-PF had also asked for the verification and recount of presidential ballots in 21 other constituencies after it claimed to have discovered evidence, which indicated that there was under-counting of its votes and inflation of opposition ballots.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) recently announced that the vote recounting exercise, which was expected to last up to last Monday, might take longer than initially projected.

The recounting of votes in other constituencies is still underway.
ZEC instructed a recount of votes for all the four harmonized elections - presidential, House of Assembly, Senate and council - in 23 constituencies.

ZEC's order for a vote recount, prompted the MDC to file an application in the High Court in an attempt to block the recount.

But in a ruling last Friday, Zimbabwe High Court judge justice Antonia Guvava dismissed the MDC's application to block the recount with costs.

The results of the parliamentary and council elections are expected to be released at constituency counting points and the presidential results are expected to be passed on to ZEC's national command centre.

The recounting of votes is expected to be done in areas such as Chimanimani West, Mutare West, Bikita West, Bikita South, Bulilima East, Zhombe, Zaka West, Zvimba North, Silobela, Chiredzi North, Gokwe-Kabuyuni, Buhera South, Lupane East, Mberengwa East, West, South, North, Masvingo Central, Masvingo West, Gutu South, North, Central and Goromonzi West.

Opposition MDC has announced that it would not recognize the results emerging from the vote recounting exercise.
The MDC stated that it would not authenticate the ruling ZANU-PF's false claims of fraud.

Labels: ELECTIONS, MDC, ZANU-PF

posted by MrK @ 5:04 AM