by Susan Njanji
Harare - Zimbabwe's electoral commission was to present candidates with initial results from a March 29 poll on Thursday, in a move that could force President Robert Mugabe into a run-off against his arch rival.
More than a month after polling day, the four candidates who stood for president on March 29 have been asked to attend a verification meeting from 12.00pm on Thursday where they will be shown the commission's initial tally of results.
The meeting comes a day after sources close to the electoral commission said that Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, was ahead of Mugabe in the count but with no outright majority.
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Tsvangirai, whose party has also wrested control of parliament from Mugabe's Zanu-PF party, has already proclaimed himself the outright victor of the ballot and has threatened to boycott any run-off against the 84-year-old incumbent.
Commission chairperson George Chiweshe said the candidates were expected to present their own tally of results at the get-together which was designed to reach a common agreement.
It was not immediately clear whether the commission would make its figures public in the absence of an immediate agreement.
"It was an agreement with the candidates that they will do their own tallies and we do ours, then when we get together we compare the results," Chiweshe said.
"Where we don't agree, we will pull out every relevant document to ensure we have the same figures. Once we agree, then we check out our additions...and at some stage we have to agree."
If there is no agreement among the candidates, the commission may then have to sift through ballot papers yet again and thus extend the wait for results which has already dragged on for nearly five weeks.
Given Tsvangirai's proclamations of victory and Zanu-PF's assertion that a run-off is inevitable, agreement appears unlikely.
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