Election Observers Report Tsvangirai Victory

Zimbabwe. Flickr photo by lateralus under a Creative Commons license. Based on a sampling of results from 435 of 9,000 polling stations, a group of independent election observers estimates that Morgan Tsvangirai defeated President Robert Mugabe 49.4% to 42%, barely missing the threshold of over 50% needed to avoid a runoff. Their estimates are unofficial, of course, and they reported a 2.4% margin of error. And the official results? The election commission did not begin to release the official results of the presidential election today, as promised earlier. Only the results of a small number of parliamentary races were made public. The longer the official results are held back, the more the suspicion grows that history is repeating itself and the final numbers are being manipulated. It is widely believed that Mugabe rigged the results in 2002 elections, defeating Tsvangirai only after a tide of "late returns" pushed him over the top, contradicting the unofficial tallies. UPDATE: The New York Times reports Mugabe may be planning to resign amid negotiations with Tsvangirai.