HARARE, Zimbabwe, June 24 (UPI) -- Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said Tuesday the presidential election will go on Friday despite calls for a postponement by the United Nations and others.
The Washington Post reported that in pre-election violence, 86 people have been killed and an estimated 200,000 driven from their homes.
For his part, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who has withdrawn from the election despite polling ahead of Mugabe, has said the violence made a fair vote "impossible," the newspaper reported. Tsvangirai took refuge Sunday in the Dutch embassy in Harare.
The U.N. Security Council was considering additional steps if Mugabe ignores the council's unanimous demand Monday night that he postpone the runoff.
"We will look at measures to be taken in the face of the defiance," Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said after a meeting of the Security Council.
"We have to give it a little bit of time to see what the reaction is, and then we have to look at what do you do to bring about compliance."
