The outcome of last weekend's election in Zimbabwe was still in doubt Wednesday as the state-run newspaper reported President Robert Mugabe was headed for a runoff with the leading opposition challenger. The Herald newspaper reported Wednesday that none of the presidential candidates will garner more than 50 percent of the vote, forcing Mugabe to enter a runoff with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party and Tsvangirai's Movement for

Democratic Change (MDC) are also headed for a tie in parliament, according to the paper.

Zimbabwe's government is coming under increasing international pressure to announce the results of Saturday's presidential or parliamentary elections soon.
"It's clear the people of Zimbabwe have voted for change," said U.S. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

The European Union said it was important for the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to release the results and avoid "unnecessary speculation" about the results.
"If Mr. Mugabe continues, it will be a coup d'etat," said Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel of Slovenia, which holds the rotating EU presidency. "I hope he is on his way out. Most Europeans think this way."

The United States and Britain have called on Zimbabwe's government to immediately release the full election results.

On Tuesday MDC sources said a deal had emerged from talks with Mugabe's representatives for the president to step down. But a spokesman for Tsvangirai denied that report saying the party was not negotiating with Mugabe.
Tensions are high in the southern African country that has never seen a transition of power. Mugabe, 84, has led Zimbabwe since the country won independence from the United Kingdom in 1980.

In the absence of official presidential results, a group of non-governmental organizations monitoring Saturday's election released exit polling data showing Tsvangirai, in the lead.
Zimbabwe's Electoral Commission has announced the results of more than half of the 210 parliamentary seats, with Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front holding a slight lead.
A Zimbabwe diplomat told CNN the delay in releasing the presidential results was simply to ensure every vote is counted.

"This is a new phenomenon," said Zimbabwe's ambassador to the United Nations, Boniface Guwa Chidyausiku, noting that four simultaneous elections were held Saturday.
"Why is everybody so interested in the presidential not parliamentary [elections]?" he said. "It's a question of priorities [for] the Zimbabwean people; not what the international community wants to know."
Chidyausiku said once the electoral commission is done announcing the winners of the parliamentary elections, "then we go to the next stage," but he did not say whether that would be announcing the presidential results.

A year after the last presidential election -- which the MDC said was stolen -- the government of Zimbabwe charged Tsvangirai with treason. He was acquitted. The MDC accused Mugabe of trying to eliminate him as a challenger.

Zimbabwe faced international sanctions after the 2002 election, including travel restrictions imposed by Washington on Zimbabwean officials.
The Commonwealth -- made up of Britain and its 53 former colonies -- suspended Zimbabwe, prompting Mugabe to withdraw from the group.

A hero of the country's civil war against the white Rhodesian government, Mugabe became the country's first black leader in 1980. Nearly three decades later, he has consolidated his rule over all aspects of Zimbabwean life.

His government was once revered for offering its citizens some of the best education and health care in Africa, but now schooling is a luxury and Zimbabwe has one of the lowest life expectancies in the world.
Part of the economic freefall is traced to Mugabe's land redistribution policies, including his controversial seizure of commercially white-owned farms in 2000. Mugabe gave the land to black Zimbabweans he said were cheated under colonial rule, and white farmers who resisted were jailed.

Mugabe denies mismanagement and blames his country's woes on the West, saying sanctions have harmed the economy.

Source: CNN