Zimbabwe?s main opposition party retained a key parliamentary seat yesterday in a by-election and vowed to keep up its protests against a worsening economic crisis it blames on President Robert Mugabe?s government.

The main faction of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), long the strongest opponent of Mugabe's 26-year rule, won 7,949 votes in Saturday's by-election against 3,961 for Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party, state radio said. The smaller MDC faction won only 504 votes.

Mugabe, whose security forces have in recent weeks stepped up harassment of his opponents, had vowed to take the capital's Budiriro district from the MDC, which accuses his government of political repression and economic mismanagement.

Leaders of the victorious MDC faction, headed by the party's longtime leader Morgan Tsvangirai, said their poll win ?reinforces the national resolve to terminate the dehumanising political and economic crisis.?

?The people have spoken ... against dictatorship, against high prices, against hyperinflation, and against the destruction of their homes and the lack of drugs in hospitals,? MDC information secretary Nelson Chamisa told at a news conference.

Threat of national strike

Inflation has rocketed to over 1,000 percent, the highest rate in the world, compounding the difficulties facing ordinary Zimbabweans who already struggle with high unemployment, persistent shortages of food, fuel and other key commodities and frequent water and electricity cuts.

Political tension has also jumped on the first anniversary of the government's controversial slum clearance programme, a drive the United Nations said left some 700,000 people homeless or jobless.

Police have cracked down on Mugabe's critics in recent weeks, fearing protests threatened by the MDC and its ally the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions.

On Saturday the ZCTU said it would lead a national strike for higher wages on an unspecified date later this year, as inflation is impoverishing Zimbabwean workers.

?With Budiriro now out of the way, the next challenge is for us to refocus on democratic resistance ... as part of our efforts to resolve the national crisis,? the MDC's Chamisa said, though he declined to give details.

Tsvangirai, whose position as leader of the main MDC faction after the party's damaging split this year was boosted by Saturday?s result, has promised a wave of ?peaceful democratic resistance? to Mugabe?s rule but the party is keeping its plans under wraps, perhaps to retain an element of surprise.

Earlier MDC protests have been crushed by security forces, and Mugabe warned earlier this year that any attempt to unseat him would be ?dicing with death.?

Police have barred marches, arrested peaceful protesters, and seized some MDC politicians in recent days.

Formed in 1999, the MDC came close to unseating ZANU-PF in 2000 parliamentary elections, but the ruling party has won major polls since then amid charges of rigging from the opposition, backed by several Western countries.

Mugabe denies the charges and dismisses the opposition as a puppet of former colonial ruler Britain and other Western states he says have sabotaged the country's economy because of his seizure of white-owned commercial farms for blacks.

Stella MAPENZAUSWA