Zimbabwe election stalemate deepens

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party and the opposition MDC have contested half the results of the March 29 parliamentary election, state media said on Wednesday, extending a stalemate that has triggered widespread violence. Official results showed ZANU-PF lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since independence in 1980, while the Movement for Democratic Change and a breakaway faction together secured enough seats to control the assembly ... The challenge will have no effect on the result of a parallel presidential ballot, however, which showed MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai won 47.9 percent against President Robert Mugabe's 43.2 percent, triggering a run-off since neither candidate won an absolute majority. The MDC has not said whether it will participate in the run-off. It believes Tsvangirai won the election outright ... The state-run Herald newspaper said ZANU-PF and the MDC had lodged 53 and 52 petitions respectively with the electoral court, citing irregularities they believed had affected the results. The challenges come after a recount of original results in 23 constituencies confirmed ZANU-PF's defeat ... independent Zimbabwean election monitoring group ZESN expressed doubt about the credibility of the results of the presidential election and accused ZANU-PF of attacking observers ... U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday he was talking to African states about how the world body could help make a run-off credible and expressed concern about the violence ...