Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe?s ruling party won back a handful of urban seats from the fractured main opposition in polls at the weekend, state media reported on yesterday.

Analysts say a damaging split within the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leaves the party weaker to challenge the ruling ZANU-PF?s 26 year grip on power, and results from council elections showed the opposition losing ground in its traditional urban strongholds.

State radio said the MDC lost its mayoral seat in a scheduled election in Chegutu, 90 km outside Harare, while ZANU-PF reclaimed two council seats in by-elections in the southwestern city of Bulawayo, where the opposition has enjoyed a clean sweep of all polls since 2000.

Formed in 1999, but rent in two by a row over participation in last year?s Senate elections, the MDC formally separated over a week ago when a rebel faction elected a new leader at a congress to challenge party chief Morgan Tsvangirai.

Tsvangirai?s faction has rejected the dissidents? move and said the ?real? MDC will hold a congress later this month likely to re-elect the former trade unionist as its leader.

The MDC has drawn most of its support from urban Zimbabweans who have borne the brunt of a deepening economic crisis. Mugabe, who turned 82 last month, denies responsibility for persistent shortages of food, fuel and foreign currency, unemployment of over 70 percent, and the world?s highest inflation rate. He says Tsvangirai and the MDC are puppets of former colonial ruler Britain which he charges has led a campaign to sabotage Zimbabwe?s economy as payback for his programme of forcibly redistributing white-owned farms among blacks.