Durban, Apr 4: South African President, Thabo Mbeki, has urged all parties in Zimbabwe to accept the outcome of the elections in that country. Mbeki was speaking in Pretoria after bi-national talks between officials of the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa.

He spoke for the first time since the elections last Saturday and since the Zimbabwean Election Commission began releasing the parliamentary results in stages.

So far the opposition, MDC, has won 98 seats out of the 210 parliamentary seats. Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF has won 96 seats and a faction of the MDC has won 10 seats. Another three seats will be decided in by-elections.

The ZEC is currently releasing results for the 60-member Senate. So far the MDC and Mugabe's party have won 5 seats.

The presidential results have still not been released but the MDC has already claimed that its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, has won 53 per cent of the votes and Mugabe 43 per cent.

"We would hope that everybody would accept those results, as they have accepted the results thus far and that the legal constitutional processes of Zimbabwe would then proceed", said Mbeki.

"If indeed Morgan Tsvangirai is elected in terms of the electoral law then that would be fine. If there is to be a run off then that is fine. So, this is a matter we must await."

Mbeki said he spoke to Tsvangirai on Wednesday about the elections in Zimbabwe. "He told me that in the event that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission came to a different conclusion, they were quite ready for a second round of elections, a run-off, between the two principal candidates that would have emerged from the electoral process thus far.

"So, we await the announcement of the results by the Zimbabwean Electoral Commission", said Mbeki.