Britain has urged the Zimbabwean government to remove its troops from the streets of Harare after at least six people were killed in post-election violence between security forces and opposition supporters.
The intervention came as opposition leader Nelson Chamisa again claimed that he had won the Zimbabwe’s presidential election despite the electoral officials saying they had not completed the process of approval and collation necessary to announce them.
“Announcing it is just a formality,” Mr Chamisa, 40, told reporters in Harare, who said the country’s electoral commission had known the true outcome since Monday.
The opposition leader, who is seeking to unseat Zanu-PF’s Emmerson Mnangagwa as president of Zimbabwe, said his MDC Alliance would releases evidence to prove his victory after the release of official results, which were due to be announced late on Thursday night.
A source close to Mr Mnangagwa told The Telegraph that the results would actually show a victory for the incumbent.
Zimbabwe’s electoral commission on Thursday announced that Zanu-PF had taken 145 seats and the MDC Alliance 60 seats in the country’s 210 member parliament. Two went to independents.
But it said that release of the presidential results had been delayed by an electoral law that requires representatives of all 23 candidates to check and approve returns from over 10,000 polling stations.
"There’s absolutely no skulduggery or anything untoward happening,” said Emmanuel Magade, the deputy chair of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, said on Thursday when asked why the presidential results had yet to be announced.
Legally officials said they have until August 4 to release results.
But the delay has fuelled an atmosphere of mistrust that has already exploded into violence.
Soldiers were seen beating opposition supporters and firing automatic weapons at fleeing civilians after they were deployed to quell violent opposition protests against alleged vote rigging on Wednesday afternoon.
Police said the death toll had climbed to six by Thursday afternoon, and that 14 people had been injured.
The violence and the decision to send in the army in response drew widespread condemnation from the international community, which is pressuring Mr Mnangagwa to prove he has broken with the political violence of the Robert Mugabe era.
Catriona Liang, the British ambassador, condemded the “excessive use of force” against protesters and called for the immediate withdrawal of troops during a meeting with Zimbabwean ministers on Thursday.
"“The military should be removed from the streets of Harare and the security forces hold act with utmost restraint,” she said in a statement. “All political leaders have a responsibility to ensure they do not raise tensions or issue statements that make violence more likely."
International election observers and human rights groups said the deployment of troops and use of live ammunition was “indefensible.”
Six international observer missions including those of the Commonwealth and the EU called on the electoral commission to speedily release the presidential results in a bid to defuse tensions.
Mr Mnangagwa called for an independent investigation into the violence and said he had been “in communication with Mr Chamisa to discuss how to immediately defuse the situation.”
“We believe in transparency and accountability, and those responsible should be identified and brought to justice,” he wrote on his official Twitter account.
Mr Chamisa denied having spoken directly to Mr Mnangagwa, but confirmed he had been in contact with Obert MPufo, the home affairs minister.
Mr Mpufo earlier said he had requested the deployment of the military after police proved unable to control the rioting that broke out on Wednesday.
But highly placed government and military sources who spoke on condition of anonymity said the decision to deploy troops was informed by doubts about police loyalty rather than lack of capacity.
The sources said the police force was believed to be dominated by Mugabe loyalists and that it had not been denied access to its own armoury since the November coup that ousted the dictator.
Police on Thursday evening raided the MDC’s city centre headquarters and confiscated computers and other materials.
Several people were seen being led away by police, who had surrounded the building with riot officers since Thursday’s violence.
Mr Chamisa said the police were trying to seize evidence of vote rigging, which he said had already been moved to a safe house.
The raid came after police have said they want to interview Tendai Biti, a former finance minister and senior MDC MP who held a press conference on Tuesday where he refused to rule out street protests.
Police said 18 members of the MDC were arrested during the raid.
Mr Chamisa signaled he was prepared to concede the parliamentary vote but insisted he had won the presidential.
"In all the constituencies where his MPs were winning, Mr Mnangagwa was losing. In all the constituencies where my MPs were not performing well, I won," he said.
"We won this election. Mr Mnangagwa knows it. Zanu PF knows it. We have the proof."