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HARARE: Zimbabwe's government defied global criticism on Tuesday by vowing to push ahead with a presidential run-off election this week even as the opposition leader remained holed up in the Dutch embassy.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's party hand-delivered a letter to the electoral commission on Tuesday confirming his withdrawal, but the justice minister said it was too late to do so.
"The election will take place on Friday in accordance with our laws and constitution," Patrick Chinamasa told AFP.
"Any withdrawal verbal or written is a nullity," he said, adding that if Tsvangirai had wanted to pull out of the race he should have done so 21 days before the first round of voting on March 29.
The government's insistence on moving ahead with the vote sets up a possible victory by default for President Robert Mugabe, who has ruled the country since independence from Britain in 1980.
International calls to postpone the vote have intensified, with UN chief Ban Ki-moon warning that holding the election "would only deepen the divisions within the country and produce results that cannot be credible."
Tsvangirai announced over the weekend he was pulling out of the election because of rising violence, saying he could not ask supporters to risk their lives by casting ballots.
His seven-page letter to the electoral commission on Tuesday lays out his concerns in detail, saying 86 people have been killed, 10,000 homes destroyed and 200,000 people displaced in the violence.
The letter also addresses the 21-day rule cited by the justice minister, arguing that the law applies only to the first-round vote and not a run-off.
It points out that Zimbabwe law says a run-off election should be scheduled within 21 days of the first round - which did not occur. Results from the first-round presidential poll were not released until some five weeks after the election.
Tsvangirai took refuge in the mission on Sunday night after announcing he would not challenge Mugabe in the run-off. He told AFP by phone he would leave when he was "satisfied that it's safe to do so."
"I am not being chased away and my hosts have said I can stay for as long as I don't feel it's safe to leave ... probably within the next two days," he added.
Mugabe has not directly responded to Tsvangirai's pull out, but in state media on Tuesday he accused former colonial ruler Britain and its allies of lying to the world to justify intervention.
"Britain and her allies are telling a lot of lies about Zimbabwe, saying a lot of people are dying," the state-run Herald newspaper quoted him as saying.
The UN Security Council has condemned the violence in the country, while Britain, the United States and France all branded Mugabe's regime "illegitimate".
Zimbabwe's ambassador to the United Nations, Boniface Chidyausiku, said the UN chief's comments on the election were "out of order."
"For him (Ban) to grandstand in New York and suggest that we should postpone the election is out of order as far as we are concerned," he said on South African radio.
Mugabe, 84, is accused by critics of leading the once model economy to ruin and trampling on human rights. The country has the world's highest inflation rate and is experiencing major food shortages.
He has pledged the opposition will never come to power in his lifetime and vowed to fight to prevent it.
Regional criticism has grown, with the ruling party in neighbouring South Africa, the continental powerhouse, issuing its harshest criticism to date of Mugabe's government.
The African National Congress said it was "deeply dismayed by the actions of the government of Zimbabwe which is riding roughshod over the hard-won democratic rights of the people of that country."
Southern African leaders meanwhile planned an emergency meeting for Wednesday on Zimbabwe's political crisis, the Tanzanian presidency said.
On Monday, police raided Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party headquarters, with an MDC spokesman claiming more than 60 people, including victims of political violence who had taken shelter there, were taken away.
But police said they had received reports that health conditions had deteriorated at the headquarters and took 39 people to a rehabilitation centre.
"None of them has been arrested ... No one was looking for anybody, let alone Mr Tsvangirai," said police chief Augustine Chihuri.
Chihuri also said Tsvangirai was under no threat and had taken refuge at the Dutch embassy in a "move intended to provoke international anger." - AFP/de
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