Harare - Authorities began releasing the first results on Monday from Zimbabwe's general election after being accused of sitting on the outcome in a desperate bid to help President Robert Mugabe cling to power.
With riot police deployed in Harare, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party were running neck-and-neck after the first six results from 210 parliamentary seats were announced by the electoral commission.
The MDC won the first seat to be declared, the newly-formed constituency of Chegutu West, around 100km west of the capital Harare, commission spokesperson Utoile Silaigwana said.
It won two of the next five seats to be declared, while the other three went to the Zanu-PF.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who had endured beatings by the security services and a treason trial in recent years, was hoping to oust Mugabe in the simultaneous presidential election in the troubled southern African country.
Mugabe 'has lost this election'
The MDC had on Sunday accused the commission of deliberately sitting on the results in a bid to fix the election in favour of Mugabe who had ruled since independence from Britain in 1980.
"Mugabe has lost this election and they have gone back to the drawing board to try and cook up a result in favour of Robert Mugabe but we will never accept that," MDC general-secretary Tendai Biti said.
Despite warnings from Mugabe's camp that pre-emptive declarations were tantamount to a coup, the MDC was adamant Tsvangirai had won and it had secured nearly all parliamentary seats in the two main cities of Harare and Bulawayo.
Fearing the kind of deadly violence, which followed Kenya's disputed elections in January, the security services had been placed on alert throughout the country.
As people made their work on Monday morning, an AFP correspondent saw groups of riot police armed with batons and shields patrol the streets in the centre of the capital although there was no sign of unrest.
2002 election 'rigged'
While the election was given a generally clean bill of health from a regional observer mission, a network of domestic organisations, which had observer status on election day also raised fears that the result was being fixed.
After determining the 2002 election was rigged, no representatives from European Union countries nor the United States had been allowed to oversee the ballot.
African countries had largely refrained from speaking out against a man who had ruled his country since independence from Britain in 1980.
In its report on the election, a team from the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) noted a number of concerns, but ultimately declared the vote was a "peaceful and credible expression of the will of the people".
Tsvangirai claimed on Saturday that his party had uncovered evidence of widespread vote-rigging, including the names of a million "ghost" voters.
As well as Tsvangirai, Mugabe was up against former finance minister Simba Makoni, who was expected to trail in third.
The elections came as Zimbabwe grappled with an inflation rate of more than 100 000% and widespread shortages of even basic foodstuffs such as bread and cooking oil.
The 84-year-old Mugabe, Africa's oldest leader, had blamed the economic woes on the European Union and the United States, which imposed sanctions on his inner circle after he was accused of rigging his 2002 re-election.
