Zimbabwe officials began recounting ballots for two dozen legislative seats on Saturday, an exercise which could overturn the opposition’s landmark victory. Human rights groups continued to report allegations of beatings and torture of opponents deemed to have voted “wrongly” in the elections which humiliated long-time President Robert Mugabe. Three weeks after the March 29 vote, Zimbabweans are still awaiting results of the presidential vote which Mr Mugabe is widely believed to have lost. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai claims he won the election outright and that the delays are aimed at brutalising and intimidating voters and engineering a run-off vote. In one contested constituency, the Herald newspaper reported a failed petrol bomb attack on offices where ballot boxes were stored. The state-controlled paper quoted police as saying that three attackers threw a home-made bomb at the Gutu district administration office in the early hours of Friday, but that it did not explode. It said the attackers drove away when challenged by a police officer.

Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corp, also state-owned, reported that the recount could take as long as three days. The ruling party is challenging the count in 23 constituencies, most won by the opposition, including in Mr Mugabe’s home district of Zvimba. An opposition attempt to stop the recount was blocked in court on Friday. Earlier, a Zimbabwe court rejected an opposition appeal for the immediate release of the presidential results. Courts are stacked with Mr Mugabe loyalists. In Zvimba, officials excluded reporters as the count began in the presence of officials from the ruling and opposition parties as well as local observers. Reporters saw no international observers at Zvimba, although The Herald newspaper quoted officials of the Southern African Development Community as saying it had sent 50 monitors.

(Source)