The denunciation from Pan-African parliament monitors came after President Robert Mugabe said he was sure of ?a sweeping victory? in Friday?s poll, held in defiance of international opinion and dismissed by much of the world as a sham.

The result expected yesterday would allow Mugabe to be sworn in for a new term, extending his 28 years of unbroken rule, before attending an African Union summit in Egypt to-day.

Mugabe was the only candidate after MDC opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew because of government-backed violence which he said had killed nearly 90 of his supporters.

?The current atmosphere prevailing in the country did not give rise to conditions for the holding of free and fair democratic elections. These elections were not free and fair,? said Marwick Khumalo, head of the Pan-African parliament observer team. ?Conditions should be put in place for the holding of free, fair and credible elections as soon as possible in line with the African Union declaration on the principles governing democratic elections,? he added.

Mugabe has rejected condemnation of the vote from inside and outside Africa and says he will confront his critics at a summit in Sharm el Sheikh. The United States plans to toughen sanctions on Zimbabwe and push the U.N. Security Council to act too.

?The returns show that we are winning convincingly, that we have won in all the 26 constituencies in Harare, an MDC stronghold where we won in only one constituency in March. That is the trend,? Mugabe said in footage broadcast on state television yesterday. ?We are heading for a sweeping victory,? Mugabe said late on Saturday.

Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party lost an election on March 29 but Tsvangirai fell short of the majority needed for outright victory, forcing Friday?s run-off.

Hyper-inflation

Mugabe, 84, has presided over the economic collapse of Zimbabwe, which is now crippled by inflation estimated to have hit at least 2 million percent.

Khumalo said the AU and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) should engage both sides in the Zimbabwean crisis in negotiations for a transitional administration. ?It?s clear ZANU-PF cannot go it alone,? he said.

The monitors said they had recorded violence and intimidation across the country, abductions and assaults which had led to some deaths and displacement of population.

Khumalo said it was difficult to dismiss reports of state-sponsored violence. Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) rallies had been disrupted and many opposition officials been arrested.

The observers said turnout was low although a ?significant number? of people had voted for Tsvangirai. ?An unusually high percentage of spoilt ballots were recorded in the polling stations where our mission observed the counting process. Unpalatable messages were written on many of these spoilt ballots,? Khumalo said.

The West increased calls on Saturday for action to end Mugabe?s rule after he went ahead with the vote despite a chorus of calls, including from neighboring states, to postpone it.

?The Mugabe regime held a sham election,? said U.S. President George W. Bush, adding Washington would impose new sanctions and urge the U.N. Security Council to implement a travel ban on Zimbabwean officials and an arms embargo.

UN troops? intervention

Kenya?s Prime Minister Raila Odinga was quoted as saying yesterday that the AU should deploy troops in Zimbabwe. ?What is happening in Zimbabwe is a shame and an embarrassment to Africa in the eyes of the international community and should be denounced,? Odinga said in Swahili during a visit to his home province Nyanza in west Kenya.

Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu dismissed the election as a charade and called on African leaders to refuse to recognise Mugabe. ?I think that would be a very, very powerful signal,? he told the BBC, reiterating his call for intervention by United Nations troops.

South Africa?s Sunday Mail newspaper quoted Tsvangirai as saying in an interview that President Thabo Mbeki would lobby AU leaders to recognise Mugabe despite the wave of condemnation.

Mbeki, the designated regional mediator in Zimbabwe, has been widely criticized internationally and in his own country for taking a soft line with Mugabe.

Cris CHINAKA