By IRNA
Pretoria : Four days after elections in Zimbabwe, pressure is growing on the country’s electoral commission to issue results.
Amid intensifying global scrutiny, Morgan Tsvangirai said his Movement for Democratic Change would issue its own results if the commission did not.
Tsvangirai has said he is convinced he defeated President Robert Mugabe but that he will not claim victory until the official count is known.
He denied rumours of a secret deal allowing Mugabe to step down.
The MDC leader said no negotiations would take place until the final result was known.
Bright Matonga, Zanu-PF’s Deputy Information Minister, also rejected reports of a deal.
Parliamentary results released so far show that the MDC has 90 seats, including five for a breakaway faction of the party, against 85 for Zanu-PF, with 35 still to come.
In his first public appearance since the election, Tsvangirai told a news conference on Tuesday evening there was “no way the MDC will enter in any deal before Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has actually announced the result”.
But he said the MDC would issue its own tally of results if ZEC continues to withhold the official figures.
They would be based on the figures which had to be posted by law outside each polling station after counting was completed.
While the atmosphere on Zimbabwe’s streets remains peaceful, if tense, there are fears that prolonging the declaration of results could foment similar violent clashes to those which followed Kenya’s contested elections in January.