Mugabe’s party seals win in Zimbabwe Senate poll President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party has sealed its victory in polls for Zimbabwe’s new Senate, winning at least 21 out of 31 seats up for grabs in elections marked by apathy and a split opposition, results said yesterday. Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party was guaranteed a further 35 of the 66 seats on the new Senate thanks to an opposition boycott in many constituencies and electoral laws that reserve seats for Mugabe loyalists such as tribal chiefs.

Official figures from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission yesterday showed ZANU-PF winning 21 seats out of the 27 counted so far after Saturday’s election. Results from the four remaining constituencies were expected later yesterday. The election was hit by voter apathy, with observers saying turn-out could end up at about 15 percent of the 3.2 million registered voters in Zimbabwe, which is struggling through its fifth year of political and economic crisis.

A renegade faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which split into two rival camps over a call to boycott the Senate elections, won at least six seats. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who had called for a vote boycott to protest at what he said was a deeply flawed electoral process, said on Sunday that most voters had vindicated his position by staying away from the polls.

ZANU-PF used its parliamentary majority this year to push through creation of the new Senate, which will have the power to approve or reject laws passed by the lower house and which critics say will entrench Mugabe’s hold over the country.