(AFP) – Jun 26, 2008

HARARE (AFP) — Polls closed in Zimbabwe's run-off election Friday with President Robert Mugabe certain of victory as the sole candidate in a contest that the opposition urged world leaders to reject.

Counting began immediately after polling stations closed their doors on the stroke of 7:00 pm (1700 GMT) at the end of a 12-hour process denounced as a sham by the United States and the European Union.

Morgan Tsvangirai won the first round 13 weeks ago with 47.9 percent of votes to Mugabe's 43.2 percent but decided to boycott the second round after a spate of deadly attacks against his supporters.

And amid widespread reports that the electorate was being coerced into voting for Mugabe, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Tsvangirai advised followers not to risk their lives with futile gestures of defiance.

"If possible, we ask you not to vote today. But if you must vote for Mr Mugabe because of threats to your life, then do so," he said.

"If forced to cast your ballot for Mr Mugabe to avoid personal harm, then again I say do so."

Despite state media predictions of a "massive" turnout, numbers voting in Harare were well down on the first round although reports from rural areas suggested polling stations were busier there.

A spokesman for the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said the first results from the 210 constituencies were not expected to be announced until Saturday.

"The counting will start immediately after the closing of the polls at each polling station," the spokesman Utloile Silaigwana told AFP.

"We will announce the results as they come at constituency level and we hope we will start tomorrow.

"After the compilation of all constituency results we will then announce the presidential result at national level."

Mugabe and his family voted in the Harare suburb of Highfields, the veteran incumbent beaming to reporters after casting his ballot.

"I feel very fit and very optimistic," he said.

In some areas of the country, there were allegations officials were inspecting ballot papers before they were placed in boxes.

A senior MDC activist in Nyamapanda, near the Mozambique border, said he had intended to spoil his paper but was confronted by an official from Mugabe's ZANU-PF party who demanded to see the voting slip.

"There was no way out. I had to vote for Mugabe," he told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The simultaneous March 29 presidential and legislative elections saw ZANU-PF lose control of parliament for the first time since independence from Britain in 1980, although the outcome is being challenged in the courts.

Mugabe said at his final rally he wants to continue as president, a post he has held uninterrupted since independence. While he would be willing to talk to the opposition, negotiations would begin only after he had won a sixth term.

But in a press conference on Friday, Tsvangirai urged the international community not to recognise the run-off.

"Anyone who recognises the result of this election is denying the will of the Zimbabwean people and standing in the way of a transition that will deliver stability and prosperity not just to the country, but to the region," he said.

Tsvangirai said he could not see "any role" in the future for South African President Thabo Mbeki, who has been mediating between Zimbabwe's opposition and ruling party, if he recognised victory for his old ally Mugabe.

"How can you recognise this kind of sham?"

The opposition leader said he was open to negotiations, but added: "Who do you negotiate with? Mugabe will be illegitimate."

Although Mbeki has been loathe to criticise Mugabe, his revered predecessor Nelson Mandela has condemned a "tragic failure of leadership" in Zimbabwe.

Foreign Ministers from the Group of Eight industrialised powers said Friday they would not accept Zimbabwe's government as legitimate if it "does not reflect the will" of the people and deplored the "systematic violence, obstruction and intimidation."

Zimbabwe was also to be discussed by African Union foreign ministers preparing for a summit in Egypt next week.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the vote a "sham" and said Washington would consider how to pressure Mugabe at the UN Security Council.

In Brussels, a European Commission spokeswoman said: "The election is hollow and its result will be equally hollow and meaningless."

Viewed in the first years after independence as a post-colonial success story, Zimbabwe has seen its economy collapse since thousands of white-owned farms were expropriated by the state at the turn of the decade.

The one-time regional breadbasket now experiences shortages of even the most basic foods while inflation -- officially put at 165,000 percent but in reality many times higher still -- is the highest in the world.

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