Zimbabwe runoff violence expected

HARARE, Zimbabwe, April 3 (UPI) -- With many expecting violence in a Zimbabwe presidential runoff, President Robert Mugabe was making ready Thursday for perhaps his last hurrah, officials said.

Mugabe, who has headed the destitute country for 28 years, barely held on for a runoff, trailing opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, originally adjudged the winner until a math mistake was corrected, showing he just missed winning without a second round of voting.

Tsvangirai, a former union official who fought for nine years to unseat the 84-year-old Mugabe, seems almost certain to win a runoff, the Los Angeles Times said.

Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change party won the parliamentary election with 99 seats, two more than Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party, final results from the Electoral Commission showed early Thursday. A breakaway MDC faction won 10 seats.

Retired Maj. Kudzai Mbudzi, a former ruling party member now loyal to third-place candidate Simba Makoni, predicted that the runoff would bring back the violence and intimidation of the 2000 and 2002 elections.

"As ZANU-PF, we used violence to win elections," Mbudzi said. "We instilled fear."