HARARE
By Zenzele Ndebele
In his first public appearance since winning the country's disputed presidential and parliamentary elections, Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe said poll results reflected the will of the people and that those who didn't like it should go "hang."
"Those who are hurt by the defeat can go hang if they wish. Even if they die, dogs will not eat their flesh," Mugabe told thousands of supporters at Harare's National Sports Stadium, where he was speaking on the occasion of Heroes Day, a national holiday.
On August 3, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) announced that Mugabe had won the presidential election with 61.09% of the vote, while his rival, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, had received only 33.94%.
The ZEC also confirmed that Mugabe's ZANUPF party had won 158 seats in the 210-seat National Assembly, while Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had won 50 seats. The remaining two seats, meanwhile, went to independent candidates.
On Friday, the MDC filed a petition with the constitutional court challenging results of the poll, which it claimed was rigged.
"Never will we go back on our victory," a defiant Mugabe told supporters, insisting that the people's choice was clear.
"We are delivering democracy on a platter," he said. "We say, 'take it or leave it but the people have delivered democracy'."
Heroes Day is celebrated every year in August to honor those who died in the country's war of liberation in the 1970s. Zimbabwe won its independence from Britain in 1980.
The event this year was boycotted by the MDC.
Mugabe, who will turn 90 next February, has been in power for the last 33 years. He has yet to be sworn in for his seventh term, due to the legal appeal against the poll results.
The polling was endorsed by the Southern African Development Community Election Observation Mission.
The United States and Britain have both raised grave concerns about the vote.
Zimbabwe has been under sanctions by the European Union and the US for the past 13 years since the violent farm invasions of 2000.
