By Stella Mapenzauswa
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's justice minister lost his seat on Monday and first election results showed the opposition level with President Robert Mugabe's party, but counting delays fuelled opposition suspicions of rigging.
Results of the parliamentary election began trickling out on Monday, 36 hours after polls closed, but no official details were available on the presidential vote, in which Mugabe faces his most formidable political challenge of 28 years in power.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said that unofficial tallies showed its leader Morgan Tsvangirai had 60 percent of the presidential vote, twice the total for Mugabe, with more than half the results counted.
Mugabe, 84, faces unprecedented pressure because of Zimbabwe's economic collapse and a two-pronged attack by veteran rival Tsvangirai and ZANU-PF defector Simba Makoni.
Latest official results showed the opposition MDC and Mugabe's ZANU-PF running neck-and-neck, with 12 seats each from a total parliament of 210 constituencies.
The MDC said its tally showed it had won 96 parliamentary constituencies out of 128 counted. Makoni had 10 percent of the unofficial presidential vote count.
"In our view, as we stated before, we cannot see the national trend changing. This means the people have spoken, they've spoken against the dictatorship," said MDC Secretary-General Tendai Biti.
MINISTER LOSES SEAT
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, a senior member of Mugabe's government, lost his seat in the opposition eastern stronghold of Manicaland.
Riot police appeared on the streets of the capital overnight and the state-run Herald newspaper accused the MDC of "preparing its supporters to engage in violence by pre-empting results, claiming they had won".
On Sunday the government said any early victory claim would be an attempted coup.
Mugabe's rivals accuse the former guerrilla leader of wrecking a once prosperous economy and reducing the population to misery.
Although the odds seem stacked against Mugabe, in power since independence in 1980, analysts believe his iron grip on the country and solid backing from the armed forces could enable him to declare victory.
Mugabe blames Zimbabwe's collapse on former colonial power Britain and says Western sanctions have sabotaged the economy.
He rejects vote-rigging allegations.
Zimbabwe is suffering the world's highest inflation of more than 100,000 percent, chronic shortages of food and fuel, and an HIV/AIDS epidemic that has contributed to a steep decline in life expectancy.
Electoral Commission chairman George Chiweshe said the delay in issuing results was due to the complexity of holding presidential, parliamentary and local polls together for the first time, and to the need to verify results meticulously.
But the opposition said the delay was a plot to keep Mugabe in power.
"Mugabe has lost the election. Everyone knows no one voted for Mugabe, but they are now trying to cook up a result in his favour," Biti said on Sunday.
A spokesman for the European Commission said it would be "opportune" for the electoral commission to publish final results as soon as possible "to demonstrate its independence and to avoid unnecessary speculation."
Two South African members of a regional observer mission said the delay in announcing the election results "underscores the fear that vote-rigging is taking place".
They refused to sign a positive preliminary report on the poll by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and said there was evidence of "widespread and convincing" MDC wins.
SADC mission chairman Jose Marcos Barrica of Angola told reporters through an interpreter the election had been a "peaceful and credible expression of the will of the people".
