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Harare: Officials began recounting ballots for a couple of dozen legislative seats on Saturday, an exercise that could overturn the Zimbabwean opposition's landmark victory.
Human rights groups continued to report allegations of beatings and torture of opponents deemed to have voted "wrongly" in the elections that humiliated longtime President Robert Mugabe.
The ruling party is challenging the count in 23 constituencies, most won by the opposition, including in Mugabe's home district of Zvimba. An opposition attempt to stop the recount was blocked in court Friday. Earlier this week, a Zimbabwe court rejected an opposition appeal for the immediate release of the presidential results. Courts are stacked with Mugabe loyalists.
In Zvimba, officials excluded reporters as the count began in the presence of officials from the ruling and opposition parties as well as local observers. Reporters saw no international observers at Zvimba, though The Herald newspaper quoted officials of the Southern African Development Community as saying it had sent 50 monitors.
Three weeks after the March 29 vote, Zimbabweans are still awaiting results of the presidential vote. Oopposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai claims he won the election outright and that the delays are aimed at brutalising and intimidating voters and engineering a runoff vote.
The opposition also charges a campaign of arrests, assaults and other intimidation is designed to suppress political dissent. The independent Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights says at least 200 people have been treated for severe injuries. The group was investigating at least two reported but unconfirmed deat
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