Zimbabwe poll result challenged in court

Zimbabwe's main opposition party has
launched legal action against President
Robert Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party's
landslide victory in last week's vote.
Lawyers for outgoing Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai, leader of the defeated Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC-T), filed an
appeal with the Constitutional Court on
Friday over the parliamentary and
presidential election results.
The lawyers said they discovered that
870,000 names were duplicated on the
voters' lists.
Douglas Mwonzora, an MDC-T spokesman,
said that they would submit good evidence of
vote-buying, rigging and other irregularities.
Outside the court, Lawyer Chris Mhike said
that Tsvangirai wanted the elections declared
null and void and for fresh elections to be
held in 60 days.
The court's judges are considered loyalists of
Mugabe, who has been in power since the
country gained independence 33 years ago.
Voters 'turned away'
"We need to put the Zimbabwean courts
before a trial," Mwonzora said just before
the papers were filed.
"These are the same courts that ordered the
elections to be held without reforms and we
are bringing this to them, the consequences
of their decision."
Electoral fraud allegations have mounted in
the wake of the July 31 polls.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said on
Thursday that more than 750,000 urban
voters were missing from the electoral list,
in what they described as "a systematic
effort to disenfranchise an estimated million
voters".
"A total of 99.97 percent of rural voters
were registered while only 67.94 percent of
urban voters were registered," said Solomon
Zwana, the network's chairman.
Zimbabwe's state election commission has
acknowledged some mistakes in last week's
disputed elections, but said that they were
not enough to sway the win for Mugabe.
President Jacob Zuma of South Africa , the
chief mediator on Zimbabwe , congratulated
Mugabe.
'Widespread manipulation'
Britain, the United States and other Western
countries have criticised the vote.