Mugabe party wins parliamentary elections

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has won most of the parliamentary seats in the general elections, says a senior source in the ruling party ZANU-PF.

ZANU-PF party spokesman Rugare Gumbo announced on Friday that Mugabe has won way over 50 percent of the 210 parliamentary seats.

The opposition MDC party, which is led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, won only 10 seats.

Election results also showed that Mugabe reclaimed some seats lost to Tsvangirai in the 2008 elections.

Meanwhile, Olusegun Obasanjo, the head of the African Union observer mission, head has declared Zimbabwe’s election as “free, honest and credible”.

Tsvangirai’s party says the ruling party of the incumbent president has committed vote rigging.

Vote counting began immediately after the presidential and parliamentary elections ended on Wednesday night, July 31.

Some 6.4 million people, or half of the Zimbabwean population, were eligible to cast their ballots at 9,670 polling stations across the country.

Mugabe has become Africa’s oldest leader at 89, having ruled Zimbabwe since its independence in 1980.

The previous presidential election in Zimbabwe was held in 2008. That vote went to a run-off, from which Tsvangirai withdrew citing violence against his supporters. The withdrawal led to Mugabe’s uncontested victory in the country.