HARARE, Zimbabwe

President Robert Mugabe swept back to power in Zimbabwe Wednesday but the opposition said he stole victory and critics condemned the election as unfair.

Registrar-General Tobiawa Mudede declared Mugabe the winner after results were in from all 120 constituencies. He said the former guerrilla won his fifth term as leader after taking 1,685,212 votes against 1,258,401 for challenger Morgan Tsvangirai.

The opposition leader said his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) would not accept the result.
"The election results ... do not reflect the true will of the people of Zimbabwe and are consequently illegitimate," he said.

But despite fears of a violent opposition backlash against the result, Tsvangirai said: "We seek no confrontation with the state because that is what it is looking for. We foresaw electoral fraud but not daylight robbery."

As Mugabe cruised toward victory, foreign and local observers said tens of thousands of people, mostly in the opposition stronghold of Harare, had been prevented from voting.

But observers from neighboring South Africa said Mugabe's re-election was legitimate. In a statement they blamed queues and chaotic delays in opposition areas on "administrative oversights."

Regional powerhouse South Africa has been widely criticized for failing to condemn Mugabe's actions publicly and for refusing to use its commercial might to influence Harare.

GOVERNMENT DISMISSES CRITICISM

Fearing opposition violence, the Zimbabwe security forces went on high alert and erected roadblocks around Harare.
Australia, a member of a Commonwealth task force monitoring the poll, said it feared violence if voters thought the election had been stolen.

The MDC said dozens of heavily armed soldiers had surrounded its office in the second city of Bulawayo. Small groups of armed riot police moved into Harare townships loyal to Tsvangirai.

Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis threatens to destabilize the entire southern African region. South Africa's rand currency, battered by concern over Zimbabwe, fell about 2.8 percent to 11.88 to the dollar at one stage after the result.

Mugabe's government has dismissed criticism of the election, which Information Minister Jonathan Moyo called "exemplary."

Amnesty International added its voice to the growing chorus of criticism, saying 1,400 people had been arrested in what it described as a "politically motivated crackdown."

Tsvangirai's campaign focused on rebuilding the shattered economy of a once prosperous nation, where unemployment stands at over 60 percent and inflation rages around 117 percent.