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ZEC says run-off could take a year
  
By Our Correspondent
 
HARARE, May 8, 2008 (thezimbabwetimes.com) – George Chiweshe, the chairman of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), has said the much talked about presidential run-off election between Zanu-PF president, Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the MDC, the loser and winner respectively of the March 29 election, could de delayed by up to one year.
 
Agence France Presse (AFP) last night quoted Marwick Khumalo, who headed a regional observer mission to the elections as saying he had spoken to Chiweshe who had made the disclosure.
 
Khumalo led the observer team of the Pan African Parliament to oversee the Zimbabwe elections in March and spoke to Chiweshe yesterday.
  
“He told me it was not possible to organise an election within the 21 days required by the constitution... He said he would have to use the extension provided for in the law,” said Khumalo, who was speaking at the Pan African Parliament on the outskirts of Johannesburg.
 
“He said the election would be organised within the shortest possible time and this would not be longer than 12 months,” added the Swaziland MP.
  
Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai beat incumbent President Robert Mugabe in presidential elections at the end of March 29, but was reported by ZEC to have fallen short of achieving the overall majority required for the winner to form the next government without resort to a second round of voting.
  
The electoral commission, which withheld announcement of the presidential election results for nearly five weeks until last Friday, should in terms of the Constitution organise the run-off by May 24.
 
The Constitution stipulates that a run-off must be held within 21 days of the announcement of the result of a presidential election, if no candidate achieves more than 50 percent of the poll.
  
Chiweshe hinted to AFP on Tuesday that the run-off would not take place within this time limit.
 
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change party has consistently accused the electoral commission of being biased towards Mugabe, believing the delays are designed to buy time for Mugabe after his electoral reverse.
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