Zimbabwe still peaceful even without final results

Thursday night in Zimbabwe and still no report of violence.

There are no new official results out of the ZEC, and seven seats still need to be announced.
Now deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga says: "If results from Saturday's election showed a second round was necessary, Mr Mugabe is ready to stand."
The tiny little "If" at the start is where all the hope of Zimbabwe stands. First teme I read it I read "results from Saturday's election showed a second round was necessary, Mr Mugabe is ready to stand."...HUGE difference.
It feels to me like a half admission that they realize that a stand off may not be needed....Now in fact numbers already show that there will not be a stand off UNLESS Mugabe challenges the numbers....

The BBC News World has a small summary of what some African newspapers are saying.

I'm going to back to work this Saturday and landing in Johannesburg Monday morning.....The first day is usually a complete write off with jet lag etc but I am looking forward to seeing for myself what newspaper in South Africa are saying. The other thing is, internet access when I work in Johannesburg is difficult, but I'll try to blog about some of what I read.

Zimbabwe results: still 7 seats to go but MDC has majority ZEC says

That's it the ZEC has given enough results now to show that Mugabe has lost the majority.

The weird thing is that there is little information. Below this I have copied the entire article about it. Who has ever seen such a short article?
You'll notice that there is nothing about how the news has been received. Once again we sit and we wait and hope that all goes well.

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News from the BBC
President Robert Mugabe's party has lost its majority in parliament, the Zimbabwe Election Commission says.

It says Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party has taken 94 of the 207 contested seats, while opposition parties have won 105. One seat has gone to an independent.
Although seven seats have yet to be declared, this means Zanu-PF cannot win an overall majority.
The opposition MDC says its leader won the presidential election but official results have not yet been released.

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Later on Yahoo (Note this is again the entire article)
LONDON (Reuters) - The deputy information minister of Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party said on Wednesday that claims by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change that it had won Saturday's presidential election were "wishful" statements. "President (Robert) Mugabe is going nowhere," minister Bright Matonga told Britain's Sky television in a telephone interview. "We are not going to be pressurized into anything."

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Note that IF the 105 seats are not contested than they not only give the majority to the MDC but also will be enough to ensure that there is no Runoff (second round).

Zimbabwe, Mugabe reported to be working a deal to step down

Apparently all this time taken to release the results is really about giving time for a deal to be made for Mugabe to step down. Here is what is in the news:
"The outline of a deal has almost been reached for Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe to step down, opposition sources have told the BBC."

Honestly I didn't believe that this was one of the possibilities .... that Mugabe would just step down.....
But read this carefully: "outline", "almost reached", "opposition sources".....

But at the same time news are coming that South Africa is denying having any role brokering the election deals in Zimbabwe..... Why is this coming up from South Africa less than 10 minutes after the news of deal came up?
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An hour or so later the same website(BBC World News) reports that opposition leader (Tsvangirai) is denying the existence of such a deal.

The interesting thing is that there have been no new results released today, and it is now 10:00pm in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe, nearly 6:00pm on Tuesday

It's nearly 6:00pm in Zimbabwe and so far no violence reported.

Results continue to trickle in and the results show little change...PART from the fact that if they tay this way Mugabe will be elected. If this happen I will feel like I have watch a great psychological success, not in elective campaign but in how to release the results so that there is no distinct point that people can point out and say "this is when I knew. This is when it went wrong".

Just in case you haven't seen the numbers:
Zuni-PF (Mugabe): 64
MDC (Tsvangirai): 62
MDC breakaway: 5
Remaining: 79

Let me add a few more numbers:
210 seats are available
109 seats represent just under 52% to be elected without a second run