By Serena Chaudhry
LUSAKA (Reuters) - Southern African leaders called onSunday for the rapid release of results from Zimbabwe'selection after a two-week delay that has raised fears ofviolence.
Zambian Foreign Minister Kabinga Pande told reporters a13-hour summit in Lusaka had also called on President RobertMugabe to ensure that a possible run-off vote againstopposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai be held "in a secureenvironment".
The 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC)"urged the electoral authorities in Zimbabwe that verificationand release of results are expeditiously done in accordancewith the due process of law", said Pande.
The opposition and human rights organisations have accusedMugabe of orchestrating a systematic campaign of violence inresponse to his ZANU-PF party's first defeat in a parliamentaryelection on March 29.
No results have been released yet from the parallelpresidential vote but Tsvangirai's Movement for DemocraticChange (MDC) says he won outright and that Mugabe's 28-yearrule is over in Zimbabwe, where the economy has collapsed.
ZANU-PF says neither Mugabe nor Tsvangirai won thenecessary absolute majority and a run-off will be necessary.
In Harare, an electoral official said 23 constituencies inthe election would be recounted next Saturday, raising newuncertainty over the vote and the possibility that ZANU-PFcould overturn its defeat in the parliamentary poll.
The summit ran almost 10 hours over schedule and endedaround 5 a.m. (4 a.m. British time). A senior Zambian officialsaid earlier the delay was caused by a disagreement amongleaders over whether the post-election impasse should be calleda crisis.
But Pande, in response to questions, said: "It is not acrisis at all."
MUGABE ABSENT
Thabo Mbeki, president of Zimbabwe's powerful neighbourSouth Africa, said after meeting Mugabe en route to the summitthat there was no crisis. Mugabe did not attend.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) official in Harare,who asked not to be named, said there would be recounts of thevotes for both presidential and parliamentary polls inconstituencies where there had been allegations of poll abuse.
The MDC has a two-seat majority in the lower house ofparliament after the election but the combined opposition tallytotals 12 more than ZANU-PF.
The opposition has rejected both a recount and a run-offagainst Mugabe, accusing him of trying to rig his way out ofdefeat in the presidential election.
The opposition and Western powers accuse Mugabe of wreckingthe economy of his once-prosperous nation where many peoplehave been reduced to misery by hyper-inflation of more than100,000 percent, shortages of food and fuel and 80 percentunemployment.
Pande, reading a summit communique, said SADC had urgedboth sides to accept the outcome of the elections.
MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told Reuters: "We have alreadysaid that we will not accept any recount because for us that isaccepting rigged results. They had custody of the ballot boxesfor two weeks and they must have stuffed them with theirvotes."
Zimbabwe's High Court was due to rule on Monday on a MDCapplication to force the electoral commission to release thepresidential outcome.
Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, SADC's current chairman,called the summit because of regional concern over the impasse.
"SADC can no longer continue to stand by and do nothingwhen one of its members is experiencing political and economicdifficulties," he said in an opening speech.
Mbeki, who has consistently favoured a softer line withMugabe, said the election process was proceeding normally.
"I wouldn't describe that as a crisis," Mbeki toldreporters after his meeting Mugabe in Harare.
"We have to wait for ZEC to release (the results)," saidMbeki, echoing Mugabe's own stance on the unusually long delay.
Mugabe dismissed a remark by Prime Minister Gordon Brownthat the world was losing patience. "If Brown is the world,sure, he will lose patience. I know Brown as a little tiny doton this planet," Mugabe said.
(Additional reporting by Shapi Shacinda in Lusaka, CrisChinaka, MacDonald Dzirutwe, Nelson Banya, Stella Mapenzauswa,Muchena Zigomo in Harare and Marius Bosch in Johannesburg;Writing by Barry Moody; Editing by Ralph Gowling)
