DATE=03/13/02

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=ZIMBABWE / ELECTION (S ALTERNATE)

NUMBER=2-287494

BYLINE=CHALLISS McDONOUGH

DATELINE=HARARE

INTERNET=YES

CONTENT=

INTRO: Official results from Zimbabwe's Presidential election show a landslide victory for incumbent Robert Mugabe. But opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai is alleging massive vote-rigging and says he will not recognize the election results. V-O-A's Challiss McDonough reports from Harare.

TEXT: Mr. Tsvangirai says his party, the Movement for Democratic Change, does not accept the official results, which say President Mugabe was re-elected by a wide margin.

The opposition leader says the Zimbabwean people are seething with anger because -- in his words -- "they have been cheated out of their right to democratically elect their own leaders."

/// TSVANGIRAI ACT ///

It's the biggest electoral fraud I have ever witnessed in my life.... It was massively rigged.

/// END ACT ///

Mr. Tsvangirai says tens of thousands of his supporters were turned away from the polls in Harare. And he says his party's polling agents were not able to monitor the ballot-counting in roughly half the rural districts because they had either been kidnapped by ruling-party militants or arrested.

Mr. Tsvangirai would not say whether he plans to challenge the election outcome in court.

Meanwhile, the South African observer mission has declared that the election result should be seen as legitimate. But the South Africans admit they cannot use the words free and fair to describe the poll. (Signed)

NEB/CEM/KL/KBK