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MUROMBEDZI, Zimbabwe: The ongoing partial vote recount from last month's general election in Zimbabwe could go beyond the three days initially anticipated, the electoral commission said on Sunday.
"Initially we had said it would take three days to complete the exercise but since we had delays we may be going above the three days," Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) deputy chief elections officer Utoile Silaigwana told AFP.
"It is not a small exercise and we want to ensure that there are no mistakes this time around," he said.
Zimbabwe began a partial recount on Saturday of votes from last month's general election as the opposition accused President Robert Mugabe and his party of trying to rig their way back to power.
The recounts in 23 of the 210 constituencies come amid rising tension and accusations of violence, with a leading human rights group charging that Mugabe followers were now rounding up opposition supporters and assaulting them in torture camps.
Initial results gave the opposition Movement for Democratic Change control of parliament in the March 29 polls but the recount could end up with Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party regaining its majority.
There was still no word on Saturday on the outcome of a simultaneous presidential ballot although MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has claimed victory, ending Mugabe's 28 years at the helm.
"We expect them to complete the recount within the next three to four days," electoral commission chairman George Chiweshe told AFP as his staff began sifting through ballot papers at a snail's pace.
Chiweshe ordered the recount after ZANU-PF complained about a string of irregularities in the constituencies.
After the opposition failed in a legal bid Friday to halt the process, electoral commission officials began recounting on Saturday morning in each of the constituencies in the presence of party agents and foreign monitors.
The MDC, which was declared to have taken 109 seats against 97 for ZANU-PF, has long regarded the nominally independent commission as a pro-government body and sees the recount as a ploy to steal back control of parliament.
"We will not recognise the outcome of the so-called recount," chief party spokesman Nelson Chamisa told AFP.
"That's an illegal process ... it is their own rigging process."
However Ignatius Chombo, the current minister for local government whose constituency of Zvimba North was one of the 23 under review, said "the recount is a just and fair way to conclude the matter".
"So if we win, we win properly and if we are going to lose we want to lose properly," he told AFP in the town of Murombedzi where his recount was being conducted.
On the delayed presidential poll results, Chombo said the electoral process should be viewed as a whole, including the recount.
"I don't see what the hullabaloo is all about. People should wait patiently until the process is completely finished. A democratic and good process will take its time," he said.
The recount has helped further dampen expectations among Zimbabweans that they will learn about the election outcome anytime soon.
"The election results are dead and buried, I would rather wait for another five years so I can vote in another election," said a Harare hotel worker.
The lack of results from the presidential election has not prevented ZANU-PF from declaring there will be a run-off and backing Mugabe as its candidate.
Tsvangirai has warned that ZANU-PF is arming itself for a "war" against the people in the aftermath of the elections, pointing to a shipment of weapons from China destined for Zimbabwe on board a vessel which had been anchored near the South African port of Durban.
After a high court judge on Friday refused permission for the weapons to be transported across the country to Zimbabwe, the ship sailed out of Durban for an unknown destination.
In a report on Saturday, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said ZANU-PF had established a network of informal detention centres to beat, torture, and intimidate opposition activists and ordinary Zimbabweans.
"Torture and violence are surging in Zimbabwe," said the organisation's Africa director Georgette Gagnon.
"ZANU-PF members are setting up torture camps to systematically target, beat, and torture people suspected of having voted for the MDC in last month's elections."
- AFP/so
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