Lawyers for Zimbabwe’s electoral commission urged the high court on Wednesday to dismiss a demand for the release of last month’s election results, saying the verification process was still underway.

“The collation has to be finished, the verification has to be finished,” the commission’s lawyer George Chikumbirike told the hearing in Harare.

“The order they sought is so unreasonable. This application must be dismissed, it ought never to have been made.”

Chikumbirike was speaking on the second day of the hearing into the application by Zimbabwe’s opposition for the court to order the commission to end its 11-day silence over the result of the March 29 presidential election.

The Movement for Democratic Change’s legal team had argued on Tuesday that there could be no justification for delaying the results any longer, saying they were effectively already known the day after the polls when returns were posted outside polling stations.

The delay had led to widespread opposition accusations that it was part of a ploy to buy President Robert Mugabe - who had ruled Zimbabwe non-stop since independence from Britain in 1980 - more time to cook up a victory.

Despite the lack of an official result, Mugabe’s party had already demanded a recount of the whole election, saying it had uncovered a series of anomalies.

The commission announced the results of a simultaneous parliamentary election nearly a week ago in which Mugabe’s ZANU PF party lost its majority to the MDC.

Justice Tendai Uchena was not expected to give his judgement until later in the week.

(Source)