In Zimbabwe today results from the election have begun to slowly come in, but already he leader of the opposition party have accused President Mugabe’s government of attempting to alter the results of the parliamentary elections and he urged the Zimbabwean people to defend their vote.

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, which is led by Morgan Tsvangirai managed to win 31 from the first 54 seats that were counted until now, but Tsvangirai said that there was inconsistencies in the results already and this was a clear sign of things to come. It now expects to lose seats overall in the 150-member parliament.

Tsvangirai said, "The government has fraudulently, once again, betrayed the people. We believe the people of Zimbabwe must defend their vote and their right to free and fair elections."

Previous elections in 2000 and 2002 saw widespread violence and a highly flawed and unfair political process being conducted. Although Thursday’s voting was reasonably peaceful, a majority of opposition leaders and independent spectators have said that the previously seen violence has already ensured that the people will vote in fear of violence and intimidation.

The seats so far have mainly been taken in the MDC’s urban strongholds, and a MDC spokesperson, Mirian Mushave said, "If you look back to the 2000 election, ZANU-PF has a strategy of first announcing election results in MDC strongholds so they can wink at the world and say look how free and fair we are."

In the run-up to the elections the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube had called on the country’s people to rise up in peaceful protest against the oppressive Mugabe government.

In addition the Zimbabwe elections have been condemned already by rights groups who say that the political process in the country is already spoilt through years of violence and intimidation from Mugabe’s ruling government.

Archbishop Ncube has stated his belief that Mugabe will easily win the elections that took place on Thursday. However, he said that the reason for this will be because the elections will be overseen by Mugabe’s military and will definitely be rigged.

In response the leader of the ruling ZANU-PF party, President Mugabe said, "I don’t know to which God he prays. His prayers are not as pious as his name suggests apparently. He is...a half-wit. I don’t know why the Vatican tolerates prayers of that nature."

The highly controversial leader dismissed the fears of fraud in the elections as "nonsense" on Thursday and said, "Everybody has seen that these are free and fair elections."

A ZANU-PF party official told reporters that he predicted that after Friday’s announcements he believed that the ruling party would win almost all the remaining seats. The chief electoral officer said, "This is a crushing defeat of the opposition."

Rumours remain rife of rigging in the polls. For example, Patrick Zhawao – Mugabe’s nephew – was declared winner in Manyame (25 miles southwest of Harare). However, the MDC charged this result as vote manipulation by the government as election officials announced on Thursday that 14,812 people had voted in that constituency. Yet early on Friday the number was changed to 24,000 and it was reported that Zhawao has won a majority 15,000 of those.

Losing candidate, Hilda Mafudze said, "I won. I was leading. Suddenly I hear about 24,000 votes, and I don't know where the extra 10,000 came from. It is the first example of what we are going to start seeing from here on."