Zimbabwe opposition to contest many poll results

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HARARE, Zimbabwe (Reuters) -- Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change said Thursday it would contest results in up to 40 of the 62 seats won by President Robert Mugabe's ruling party in last month's election.

The MDC won 57 of the 120 parliamentary seats contested in the toughest election that Mugabe's ZANU-PF party has fought since assuming power at independence from Britain 20 years ago.

The final seat went to a small opposition party.

The MDC says it could have easily won the poll if ZANU-PF supporters and independence war veterans had not waged a violent campaign that had claimed 31 lives before the June 24-25 elections.

"By (Wednesday) we had filed papers contesting the results in 37 constituencies, and our lawyers are looking at a couple of more cases. We could end up with more than 40 appeals in the High Court," MDC spokesman Learnmore Jongwe told Reuters.

Thursday was the last day to file election appeals.

"Our assessment is that we have a very strong case. Besides cases of violence and intimidation, we have evidence of multiple voting and people who are dead being recorded as having voted," said MDC legal secretary David Coltart.

European Union election observers found evidence of widespread intimidation of voters and the exclusion of others from electoral rolls. But they gave a largely positive assessment of the way voting and counting were conducted.

ZANU-PF spokesman Chen Chimutengwende said there was no chance that the results would be overturned. He accused the MDC of seeking publicity through the courts.

Chimutengwende's own victory in a rural constituency north of Harare is being challenged.

"They know they lost ... in many cases by wide margins. But they are out to tarnish the image of ZANU-PF through these publicity stunts," he said on state television on Thursday.

The High Court earlier this week ordered election authorities to verify ballots cast in Chimutengwende's Mazowe West constituency following allegations that ZANU-PF had cheated by ferrying its supporters to vote several times at different polling stations.

But Chimutengwende's MDC rival stopped the verification process on Tuesday, saying he had found enough evidence to challenge the result in the High Court.

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