HARARE, Zimbabwe — President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party demanded a vote recount and a further delay in the release of presidential election results, the state Sunday Mail newspaper reported, while militants seized equipment and livestock from white-owned farms.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change, which claims its leader Morgan Tsvan girai won the March 29 presidential ballot outright, said it would not accept a recount and pressed ahead with legal attempts to force publication of the results.
The high court heard testimony Sunday afternoon from opposition-party lawyers who lodged an urgent petition demanding publication of the election results. Opposition- party lawyer Andrew Makoni said the high-court judge would rule today on the petition.
Meanwhile, farmers reported that militant supporters of the ruling party had invaded eight of the country’s few remaining white-owned commercial farms.
Police later persuaded the militants to leave farms in southern Masvingo district, but even as that was happening, two more farms were invaded in northern Centenary, the Commercial Farmers Union reported.
Mugabe has ruled here since his guerrilla army helped overthrow white minority rule in 1980. His popularity has been battered by an economic collapse after the often-violent seizures of white-owned commercial farms since 2000. About 5,000 farms were seized, and about 300 white farmers remain on the land.
