Mugabe poll landslide stirs anger, calls for calm

Zimbabwe\'s Robert Mugabe looked set to extend his 33-year rule after winning a thumping parliamentary majority in disputed polls, prompting opposition fury and calls for calm from regional power brokers Friday. Full results have yet to be announced, but 89-year-old Mugabe was reportedly already preparing for his seventh inauguration after his camp claimed a shock landslide win that has left the opposition reeling. With 186 of 210 constituencies counted after Wednesday\'s poll, Mugabe\'s ZANU-PF party already has a commanding lead, officially garnering 137 seats in parliament. But a ZANU-PF politburo member told AFP the party had in fact surpassed the 140 seats needed to amend the constitution. \"We have already gone beyond two-thirds. It\'s a super majority,\" the top party official said on condition of anonymity. An official announcement is expected on Saturday. \"Our opponents don\'t know what hit them,\" party spokesman Rugare Gumbo earlier told AFP. \"The president might likely get 70 to 75 percent.\" Mugabe\'s opponent and longtime foe Morgan Tsvangirai has described the vote as a \"sham\" and a \"huge fraud.\" He now faces the political battle of his life. His Movement for Democratic Change has vowed not recognise the results, or the new government, amid rapidly escalating tensions. In a bid to head off rising anger, the 15-member southern African bloc SADC implored \"all Zimbabweans to exercise restraint, patience and calm.\" The bloc described the vote as \"free and peaceful\" but refused to echo the African Union\'s declaration that it was fair. \"We have said this election is free, indeed very free,\" said top SADC election observer Bernard Membe. \"We did not say it was fair... we didn\'t want to jump to a conclusion at this point in time.\" Membe met with Mugabe on Friday to \"wish him good luck as he is preparing himself for the inauguration,\" he told later told journalists. He said he would try to convince Tsvangirai to concede defeat. SADC negotiated the creation of a power-sharing government in the wake of 2008\'s bloody poll. With 600 observers on the ground, its verdict and next steps will be closely watched by western nations barred from monitoring the poll themselves. Foreign diplomats have expressed deep misgivings about a poll they have described privately as non-violent but fundamentally flawed. The independent Zimbabwe Election Support Network reported up to one million voters were prevented from voting in Tsvangirai strongholds. But there is also an acknowledgement that options are limited. \"SADC and the AU, the international community want to move forward,\" said Jakkie Cilliers, director of South Africa\'s Institute for Security Studies. \"There is no way that they are going to depose ZANU-PF or Mugabe. It\'s going to happen through domestic resistance or upheaval or some type of palace coup eventually.\" Already there are calls for mass protests, and warnings that may prompt a bloodbath. Top leaders from Tsvangirai\'s MDC began a two-day meeting Friday to decide their response and are expected to make a full statement Saturday. Ahead of the meeting, top MDC official Roy Bennett called for a passive resistance campaign, urging people to \"just bring the country to a standstill.\" Meanwhile Mugabe\'s allies were planning what to do with ZANU-PF\'s parliamentary majority. \"The new constitution will need cleaning up,\" said Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, referring to a text overwhelmingly approved by Zimbabweans in March that introduced term limits and curbed presidential powers. Chinamasa said Mugabe\'s government would also press on with controversial efforts to bring firms under black ownership. Investors have expressed fears that may mean rolling back the power-sharing government\'s efforts to stabilise the economy after crippling hyperinflation and joblessness. \"It\'s back to extreme volatility,\" Iraj Abedian, the CEO of Pan African Investments, told AFP from Johannesburg. \"We can expect fairly radical positions that will have populist support, but which will have huge implications.\" Abedian said foreign owned banks were likely in the firing line for seizures that would, like land and mining grabs, lead to chaos. \"The land grabs caused chaos in the agricultural sector and it took ten years for it to settle down. \"The financial sector would have a similar impact. It would cause chaos, but ZANU-PF and Mugabe seem to like that.\" Mugabe -- Africa\'s oldest ruler -- is a former guerrilla leader who guided Zimbabwe to independence in 1980 from Britain and white minority rule. But his military-backed rule has been marked by controversial land reforms, a series of violent crackdowns, economic crises and suspect elections that have brought international sanctions and made him a pariah in the West. Former union boss Tsvangirai won the first round of voting in 2008, but was forced out of the race after 200 of his supporters were killed and thousands more injured in suspected state-backed intimidation and attacks. Some Western analysts said this could be Tsvangirai\'s last bid at the top job.