A storm of condemnation from inside and outside Africa greeted Mugabe's decision to hold Friday's election, in which he was the sole candidate. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and Western powers denounced the poll as illegitimate.
Tsvangirai, who won the first round on March 29 but pulled out of the run-off and took refuge in the Dutch embassy because of what he called state-backed violence, said millions of people stayed away from polling stations despite intimidation.
The U.N. Security Council said it deeply regretted the staging of the election because free and fair conditions did not exist, and Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu said the world had the right to intervene to end the crisis.
Many Western leaders urged the African Union to take action at a summit in Egypt on Monday, saying Mugabe's 28 years in power had to end because the political turmoil and economic meltdown in Zimbabwe threatened regional security.
The Herald contradicted international media reports that many Zimbabweans boycotted the ballot and statements by witnesses that government militias forced people to vote for the 84-year-old Mugabe.
"Initial reports from polling stations countrywide indicate that this would be the biggest turnout Zimbabwe has ever had, which is a slap in the face for detractors who claimed this was a ‘Mugabe election'," said the paper. It gave no turnout figure.
The Herald said the election was peaceful and quoted the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission as saying counting had started and that it hoped to begin announcing results on Saturday.
On Friday, Tsvangirai, who says almost 90 of his supporters have been killed, told a news conference: "What is happening today is not an election. It is an exercise in mass intimidation with people all over the country being forced to vote."
BALLOT ALLEGATIONS
A witness in Chitungwiza township, south of Harare, told Reuters voters were forced to hand the serial number of their ballot paper and their identity details to an official from Mugabe's ZANU-PF party so he could see how they voted.
