Zimbabwe presidential election latest: Mugabe source claims victory as Tsvangirai labels vote a 'sham'

Zimbabwe's prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai has called the country's presidential election a "huge farce" which was "null and void".

"It's a sham election that does not reflect the will of the people," said Tsvangirai.

According to the BBC, an election observer group has claimed 'up to a million people' have been prevented from voting in the national election.

Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) said that the election had been "seriously compromised" by irregularities, including eligible voters not included on the electoral roll and therefore barred from casting a vote.

However, an unamed source from Mugabe's Zanu PF party has claimed victory, according to Reuters in Africa "We've taken this election. We've buried the MDC. We never had any doubt that we were going to win."

President Robert Mugabe, 89, in power since 1980, vowed this week that he would quit if he lost the election. However, problems were spotted with electoral records earlier this week .

"The voters' roll in itself is in total shambles. We've got a good number of duplicate names," said a spokesman for Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change.

According to Sky News correspondent Emma Hurd "all independent observers seem to agree on is that there will have been some element of rigging in the process."

Mugabe's supporters were vocal. "Robert Mugabe is the only person who can stand for us," voter and electrician Kelvin Mudzing told The Guardian at the polling booths in Harare.

"We're the younger generation and we need someone with the sense of where we're coming from. We should keep him as long as he's willing to serve."

"There are a whole raft of issues that make it very difficult to believe the people of Zimbabwe freely expressed their choices," Tiseke Kasambala of Human Rights Watch told The Daily Telegraph.


Main image via Getty