Zimbabwe's ruling party has endorsed President Robert Mugabe as its candidate if a presidential run-off is necessary.

A ZANU-PF party official, Didymus Mutasa, made the announcement after Mr. Mugabe and party leaders met in the capital, Harare Friday.

Zimbabwe's electoral commission has still not released any results from the presidential election held last Saturday.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said Friday that he believes he won the election outright with more than 50 percent of the vote.

But the state-run Herald newspaper and an independent monitoring group, the Zimbabwean Elections Support Network, have said that Mr. Tsvangirai fell short of the majority needed to avoid a run-off.

Today, Mr. Tsvangirai's opposition Movement for Democratic Change asked Zimbabwe's High Court to order a release of the results.

Zimbabwean law requires the run-off to be held within 21 days of the first round. But diplomats and MDC officials are saying Mr. Mugabe plans to extend that time to 90 days so he and his party can regroup.

Results from parliamentary elections also held Saturday showed the opposition seizing control of parliament from ZANU-PF.

Mr. Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since it gained independence from Britain in 1980. Supporters hail him as a hero of the country's independence movement, but critics say his policies have ruined Zimbabwe's economy.

The nation suffers from chronic food shortages, and has an annual inflation rate of more than 100,000 percent.

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