Mugabe party says winning most seats in Zimbabwe parliamentary elections

HARARE, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party has won way over 50 percent of the parliamentary seats in Zimbabwe elections, the party spokesman said Friday.

The party has so far won way over 50 percent of the 210 parliamentary seats, while there were figures yet to be published in other constituencies, Zanu-PF's national spokesman Rugare Gumbo told Xinhua.

Earlier on Friday, Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), the only authority allowed to release official elections results, announced the results of elections of 62 parliamentary seats, with Mugabe's Zimbabwe Africa National Union -- Patriotic Front (Zanu- PF) taking 52 seats, leaving only 10 to his rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) party.

ZEC chairperson Justice Rita Makarau told reporters that collation and verification of results was progressing well and the

final results can be expected earliest by later Friday.

About 6.4 million Zimbabweans were registered to vote in Wednesday's general elections. Tsvangirai is making his third attempt over a decade to unseat Mugabe.

Zimbabweans should expect an intensification of the indigenization and empowerment program now that President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF will be firmly in charge of government, Gumbo said.

Mugabe's election campaign is running under the theme, "indigenize, empower, develop and create employment," buttressing his Zanu-PF party's policy of indigenization and economic empowerment under which Zimbabweans should own majority stakes in foreign companies.

In its election manifesto, Zanu-PF says the essence of its ideology is to economically empower the indigenous people of Zimbabwe by enabling them to fully own their country's "God-given natural resources and the means of production to unlock or create value from those resources."

"They should also expect food security and the improvement of infrastructure such as roads and other services," Gumbo said.

"We are very happy, we're excited about it, exuberant and we think we have done what needs to be done," he said.

Regarded as Mugabe's most serious challenger in politics since 1997, Tsvangirai on Thursday cried foul of the election, saying it is a huge "farce" and does not reflect the will of the people.

"The election has been heavily manipulated." Tsvangirai said, "The credibility has been marred by administrative and legal violations which affect the legitimacy of its outcome."