Mugabe party secures majority seats in Zimbabwe parliament

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's party has secured more than two thirds of seats in the parliament, the country's electoral body said Saturday, giving the party power to effectively decide on major state affairs. The Zimbabwe Africa National Union -- Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) won at least 140 seats in the 210-member lower house of the parliament, as the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission is announcing the results of the last batch of parliamentary seats in the July 31 elections. Mugabe's most formidable opponent -- Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T), however, tailed far behind. The state newspaper Herald on Saturday headlined "2013 total political eclipse", running a chart showing Zanu-PF securing parliamentary seats in most of the ten provinces except capital Harare. "We are so happy. We did not expect winning so overwhelmingly," said Zanu-PF spokesman Rugare Gumbo. "The people have spoken. It is a resounding victory for us." The landslide parliamentary victory also foretold Mugabe's win in presidential election in which he faced Tsvangirai the third time over a decade. Millions of Zimbabweans voted on July 31 to elect a president, 210 lawmakers, and nearly 2,000 local councilors. Gumbo said earlier that Mugabe won more 60 percent of the votes in the presidential race, based on the initial results the party has learned. "It is about 60 to 70 percent. We cannot get less than that," Gumbo said. "It is a crushing victory against puppets of imperialists!" Gumbo, a revolutionary veteran himself, compared the victory to one in 1980 upon the country's independence following Mugabe-led guerrilla war against white rulers. In 1980 parliamentary elections, Zanu-PF won 70 percent of the seats.