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MUROMBEDZI, Zimbabwe-[[[[Zimbabwe held a partial recount Saturday of votes from last month's general election as the opposition accused President Robert Mugabe and his party of trying to rig their way back to power.The recounts in 23 constituencies come amid rising tension and accusations of violence, with a leading human rights group charging that Mugabe followers were now rounding up opposition supporters before assaulting them in torture camps.]]]]The opposition Movement for Democratic Change won control of parliament in the March 29 polls but the recount could end up with Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party regaining its majority.There is still no word on the outcome of a simultaneous presidential ballot although MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has claimed victory over the incumbent."We expect them to complete the recount within the next three to four days," electoral commission chairman George Chiweshe told AFP as his staff began sifting through ballot papers.Chiweshe ordered the recount after ZANU-PF complained about a string of irregularities in the constituencies.After the opposition failed in a legal bid Friday to halt the process, electoral commission officials began recounting on Saturday morning in each of the constituencies in the presence of party agents and foreign monitors.The opposition MDC, which currently has 109 seats against 97 for ZANU-PF, has long regarded the nominally independent commission as a pro-government body and sees the recount as a ploy to steal back control of parliament."We will not recognise the outcome of the so-called recount," chief party spokesman Nelson Chamisa told AFP."That's an illegal process. Whatever they are doing we will not recognise it, and it is their own rigging process."However Ignatius Chombo, the current minister for local government whose constituency of Zvimba North was one of the 23 under review, said "the recount is a just and fair way to conclude the matter"."So if we win, we win properly and if we are going to lose we want to lose properly," he told AFP in the town of Murombedzi where his recount was being conducted.The lack of results from the presidential election has not prevented ZANU-PF from declaring there will be a run-off and has backed Mugabe as its candidate.The 84-year-old president avoided any direct mention of the election outcome or whether he would stand in a run-off when he delivered an address Friday at celebrations to mark Zimbabwe's 28th anniversary of independence from Britain.Instead Mugabe, who has ruled uninterrupted since independence, devoted much of his speech to attacks on the former colonial power whom he accused of bribing voters to mark their ballots for the MDC.Tsvangirai has warned that ZANU-PF is arming itself for a "war" against the people in the aftermath of the elections, pointing as evidence to a shipment of weapons from China destined for Zimbabwe on board a vessel which had been anchored near the South African port of Durban.After a high court judge on Friday refused permission for the weapons to be transported across the country to Zimbabwe, the ship sailed out of Durban for an unknown destination.[[[[In a report issued Saturday, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said that ZANU-PF had established a network of informal detention centres to beat, torture, and intimidate opposition activists and ordinary Zimbabweans."Torture and violence are surging in Zimbabwe," said the organisation's Africa director Georgette Gagnon. "ZANU-PF members are setting up torture camps to systematically target, beat, and torture people suspected of having voted for the MDC in last month's elections."]]]]As in the days of Noah....
