ZIMBABWE'S long serving president, Dr Robert Mugabe, has won 92 per cent of the votes in a presidential election that was 100 per cent predictable.
After 16 years in power Dr Mugabe was regarded as certain to sweep the poll, even before his only two rivals pulled out of the race last week. Less than a third of the country's 4.9 million voters bothered to turn out in two days of polling.
Dr Mugabe had campaigned heavily for a high turn out to confound his critics, who claimed that the public was growing weary of him after years of de facto one party rule.
The weekend poll was the lowest in the young country's history.
Zimbabwe's main human rights organisation, Zimrights, said yesterday that the elections, conducted under tight government control, had been free but not necessarily fair. The executive director of Zimrights, Mr David Chimhini, said he was not satisfied that the turn out had even been as high as 32 per cent.