Opposition take early lead in Zimbabwe poll

Zimbabwe’s opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangari, voting in the country’s parliamentary elections in which his party has taken an early lead after a quarter of the results have been counted.

The news is tempered however by the fact that these returns were mostly from the Movement for Democratic Change’s traditional urban strongholds – normally the first to report election results. Returns for the rural bastions of President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF are coming in more slowly, but are expected to swing the vote in favour of the government. Western countries, human rights organisations and the opposition have said the elections have been unfairly tilted in favour of Mugabe’s Party. Voter turnout has been calculated from official figures at 42%, down from the 48% for the last parliamentary poll in 2000.

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