Zimbabwe's registrar-general denies manipulating voters roll

Registrar-General of Voters Tobaiwa Mudede on Friday denied that the voters' roll used in Wednesday's elections was manipulated. Addressing a press conference, Mudede said those who lost elections were bound to complain. "The voters' roll was not manipulated at all.. All over the world, when people lose they point fingers," he said. Mudede's comments came after President's Robert Mugabe's long- time rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) party, who is likely to lose in the elections, on Thursday dismissed the poll as a huge "farce", saying it was seriously manipulated and failed to meet the international standards of free, fair, and transparent. Senior MDC- T members have said protest is an option to vent the frustration. An estimated 6.4 million Zimbabweans went to polls on Wednesday to elect a president, 210 law-makers, and nearly 2,000 local councilors. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has been rolling out the results of parliamentary election results since late Thursday. Among the 120 parliamentary seats announced, Mugabe's Zanu-PF won 77, or 64 percent. Tsvangirai's MDC-T won only 43 seats. Mudede has been accused of failing to avail the voters' roll on time. He defended himself by saying that the one month time-frame given for his office to prepare and publish the roll was too little. He said a number of parties had collected hard copies of the voters' roll, but Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC-T party was insisting on having an electronic roll. There have also been allegations that Mudede's office used an Israeli company to manipulate the voters' roll, but he said nothing of the sort happened.