With Mugabe boasting he crushed the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in Friday's poll, a swearing-in ceremony was due to begin at 3 p.m. (1300 GMT), an information ministry source said.

 

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who won the first round but pulled out of the run-off after a wave of deadly attacks against his supporters, said he was ready to talk with Mugabe about a unity government.

 

With Mugabe's regime pressing for a results announcement, helicopters and boats were dispatched to collect tallies in remote areas, an official from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said on condition of anonymity.

 

The source added that Emmerson Mnangagwa, a cabinet minister and Mugabe's chief election agent, visited commission headquarters Saturday night to urge a quick results announcement.

 

"They were pushing for the results to be announced today and we said to them it would be difficult but we will try," the source said.

 

In remarks carried on state television Sunday, 84-year-old Mugabe -- Africa's longest serving head of state -- said partial tallies indicated he "won overwhelmingly".

 

"You would not imagine that in Harare, where we had been beaten in all but one constituency in the March elections, this time around not even one went to the MDC," Mugabe told mourners at the funeral of his wife's grandmother Saturday.

 

Tsvangirai announced a week ago he was pulling out, but his name remained on the ballot after the electoral commission said it was too late to withdraw.

 

Zimbabwe is expected to feature heavily at an African Union summit in Egypt this week amid calls for sanctions.

 

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, among the veteran leader's most vocal critics on the continent, called on the bloc to send troops into Zimbabwe, as he labeled Mugabe "a shame to Africa".

 

"You cannot say you have won an election in which you arrest your opponents, where you beat and kill your opponents," said Odinga in Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper Sunday.

 

South African cleric and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu said "a very good argument can be made for having an international force to restore peace" in Zimbabwe under UN auspices.

 

In London, British Foreign Office Minister Mark Malloch Brown said that if Mugabe resists change and violently oppresses human rights, "then I hope the African neighbours will do whatever it takes to secure his departure".

 

Human Rights Watch's Africa director Georgette Gagnon said: "The African Union can help end the violence in Zimbabwe by taking the strongest possible action against Robert Mugabe and his government."

 

A group of African lawmakers who observed Friday's run-off said the outcome should be scrapped and a new vote held.

 

Marwick Khumalo, head of the Pan African Parliament mission, which included around 50 members, spoke of a "campaign marred by high levels of intimidation, violence, displacement of people, abductions, and loss of life."

 

US President George W. Bush on Saturday ordered additional sanctions to beef up existing measures that include a travel ban on Mugabe's inner circle and a freeze on their bank accounts.

 

South African President Thabo Mbeki was, however, accused by Tsvangirai of lobbying AU leaders to have Mugabe recognised as the rightful president in order to help him continue with his widely-criticised mediation efforts.

 

"For President Mbeki to promote Mugabe in these circumstances flies against the grain of international opinion, disregards the feelings of Zimbabweans and undermines again his credibility in the mediation effort," he told the Johannesburg-based Sunday Times.

 

The MDC leader has previously called for Mbeki to be axed as the regionally appointed mediator on Zimbabwe, accusing him of blatant bias towards Mugabe.

 

In separate newspaper interviews, Tsvangirai said he would push for negotiations with Mugabe on a new constitution and fresh elections, keeping open the possibility of a ceremonial head of state role for the president.

 

"We must bring the old man to the negotiating table as soon as possible," he told Britain's Mail on Sunday.

 

Mugabe, who has ruled the former British colony since independence in 1980, has indicated he is willing to talk with the MDC, while maintaining he would never allow Tsvangirai to replace him.

 

 

 

Mugabe