Zimbabwe's MDC challenges Robert Mugabe election victory

Robert Mugabe has dismissed criticism of the polls

Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has filed a legal challenge to Robert Mugabe's victory in last week's presidential elections.

The electoral petition seeks an order for the result to be declared null and void and a new election to be called within 60 days.

The MDC's 15 grounds include alleged bribery, abuse of "assisted voting" and manipulation of the electoral roll.

Mr Mugabe, 89, won with 61% of the presidential vote.

His Zanu-PF party gained a parliamentary majority of more than two-thirds, with 160 seats compared to 49 for the MDC.

The MDC is to file a complaint on the parliamentary results at a later date, reports the BBC's Brian Hungwe in the capital, Harare.

'Disenfranchised'

Lawyers for the MDC, which filed its petition with the country's supreme court, told the BBC they had "strong evidence of electoral irregularities".

They said a shockingly high number of people were unable to vote at the polls, and that food was distributed to Mr Mugabe's supporters against electoral regulations, our correspondent says.

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Zimbabwe poll results 2013

Presidential:

• Robert Mugabe, Zanu-PF - 61%, 2,110,434 votes

• Morgan Tsvangirai, MDC - 34%, 1,172,349 votes

Parliamentary:

• Zanu-PF - 160 seats (up 61 seats from 2008)
• MDC - 49 seats (down 51 seats from 2008)

The challenge comes after Zimbabwe's electoral commission said nearly 305,000 voters had been turned away from polling stations on election day.

Mr Mugabe's margin of victory was some 940,000 votes.

A week after the election, Mr Mugabe dismissed criticism of the polls and lashed out at Western countries for their response.

Zimbabwe's constitutional court has up to 14 days to respond to the legal challenge. But if the court upholds the results, Mr Mugabe must be sworn in within 48 hours of the ruling.

African and regional monitors praised the poll for being peaceful but noted some irregularities. Western observers were not invited to witness the 31 July vote.

But a local observer group, the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (Zesn) and its network of 7,000 observers, has said that about one million voters were "systematically disenfranchised" by being omitted from the voters' roll or turned away.

The electoral roll has come in for criticism for having duplicate names and the names of dead Zimbabweans.

Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the MDC, rejected the vote as fraudulent and said his party would boycott government institutions.

The Zanu-PF and the MDC have been in a coalition since 2009, after the last election sparked widespread violence.