Johannesburg/Harare - A Zimbabwean government spokesman on Thursday vowed embattled President Robert Mugabe would fight tooth and nail to retain the presidency despite his Zanu-PF party's defeat in parliamentary elections. "President Mugabe is going to fight to the last," Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga told the BBC in an interview.
Mugabe himself made his first public appearance since casting his vote Saturday, appearing relaxed as he thanked the African Union on national television for sending observers to the elections, observers said.
Five days after Saturday's combined presidential, parliamentary and local elections Zimbabweans are on tenterhooks as they wait for the results from the crunch presidential vote that could end Mugabe's 28-year rule.
The government has said it will issue the results by Friday. Zanu-PF's politburo is also scheduled to meet Friday.
Analysts have predicted a stinging defeat for Mugabe at the hands of opposition Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai, following Zanu-PF's rout in the parliamentary vote.
The (MDC) has already declared its leader Morgan Tsvangirai victorious claiming 50.3 per cent of the vote in their own count of the votes.
Matonga dismissed this claim, saying that while the ruling party took only 97 seats in the 210-seat House of Assembly to 109 for the combined MDC, it won more votes than Tsvangirai's larger of two MDC faction (46 per cent for Zanu-PF to 43 per cent for MDC-Tsvangirai).
This, Matonga says, points to a tight race for president and a second round between Tsvangirai and Mugabe. The constitution says if no candidate takes more than 50 per cent of the vote plus one ballot a runoff must be held within three weeks.
"If there is no clear winner the law states that you have to have a runoff," Matonga told the BBC.
In the event of Mugabe and Tsvangirai facing off in a second round "we won't be caught napping," he vowed. "We will win."
The state Herald newspaper also appeared to be backing a runoff describing the parliamentary vote breathily as a "photo finish" between Zanu-PF and Tsvangirai's MDC faction.
It was unclear to what extent Matonga's and the Herald's remarks reflected sentiment within the ruling party, which several sources have confirmed as being in talks with the MDC on the election outcome, or indeed Mugabe's own intentions.
Mugabe himself had previously ruled out a second round, saying that Zimbabwean elections deliver knockouts, not a boxing match.
The MDC has said that Tsvangirai would enter a runoff - but only "under protest."
Saturday's elections, which got a qualified thumbs-up from African observers despite the presence of police in polling stations and other irregularities, was seen mainly as a vote on the economic chaos wrought by Mugabe's policies, which have resulted in 100,000-per-cent inflation and brought millions to the brink of starvation.
Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980.
