April 1 (Bloomberg) -- The normally bustling streets of Harare, Zimbabwe emptied amid fears of opposition protests or a police crackdown that may follow, as concern grows that President Robert Mugabe is manipulating election results to extend his 28-year rule, people in the capital city said.

So far, the government has announced results for just over half of parliament's 210 seats, putting the opposition and ruling party neck and neck. No results have been released for municipal, senatorial and presidential elections. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change, led by Morgan Tsvangirai, claims to have won a majority in parliament and the presidential race.

``No-one knows anything,'' the streets are quiet and roadblocks have been set up on many roads, Mary Sargeant, an advertising manager who has lived in Harare for 30 years, said in an interview today. ``The silence is deafening and the speculation rife.''

Public dissatisfaction has grown with Mugabe's rule in the southern African nation after a decade of recession and the world's highest inflation rate of 100,580 percent. He won polls in 2000, 2002 and 2005 with the help of violence and irregularities, according to European Union observers and others who monitored those votes.

Run-Off Election

So far, the government has announced on state television that the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front has won 63 seats, the MDC 62 and a splinter group of the MDC five, said Nelson Chamisa, a spokesman for the MDC. Eighty seats are still to be announced. Chamisa said unreleased results will put the MDC clearly ahead.

Mugabe, 84, is competing against former labor leader Tsvangirai, 56, and Simba Makoni, a 58-year-old ex-finance minister who is running as an independent after breaking with the ruling party. A run-off election would be held within three weeks if none of the presidential candidates obtains more than 50 percent.

A tally posted on the Internet by non-governmental groups showed Tsvangirai obtained 51 percent of the presidential vote, Mugabe 42 percent and Makoni 7 percent. It gave the MDC 99 out of the 210 parliamentary seats, Zanu-PF 77 and independents and the splinter group of the MDC, 10, with results for the remaining 24 seats not yet collated. The groups say they base their count on results posted outside polling stations, as is required before they are sent to the central government.

Mugabe Defeat

Mugabe may accept that his party has been defeated, John Makumbe, a political analyst, said in an interview from Harare.

``The service chiefs from the army and the police are talking to Tsvangirai in an effort to create some sort of transitional structures,'' Makumbe said, without identifying the source of the information.

Noel Kututwa, chairman of the independent Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network, said a sample it conducted of 435 polling stations, covering 5 percent of the population, showed Tsvangirai winning 49 percent of the presidential vote, Mugabe 41 percent and Makoni 8 percent.

Bloomberg News wasn't able to verify the MDC's claim of victory independently.

``What the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission is doing now is simply buying time,'' said Marian Tupy, an Africa specialist at the Washington-based Cato Institute, in an interview. The government hasn't ``decided what to do: to declare a state of emergency, to simply steal the election, or to postpone the day of reckoning by allowing a second round.''

Engineering Victory

Many of the seats obtained by Zanu-PF in the parliamentary polls are in rural areas and the north of the country where Mugabe comes from. In the 2000, 2002 and 2005 elections, the opposition held early leads based on results from urban areas, only to be thwarted when returns from rural Mugabe strongholds allowed him to claim victory.

``Tensions are rising as people wonder why these delays are necessary, particularly given that some results have been posted outside polling stations,'' Michelle Gavin, an analyst at the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations, said on a conference call yesterday. ``It looks to Zimbabweans like this should be a simple process.''

The commission began releasing results just before 7 a.m. Zimbabwean time yesterday and hasn't said when it will finish.

Marwick Khumalo, an observer from the Pan-African Parliament, said members of the ruling party are ``concerned about the possibility of a change of guard,'' SAfm, a state- controlled South African broadcaster, quoted him as saying.

Tsvangirai's spokesman George Sibotshiwe said he knew ``nothing about meetings between Tsvangirai and service chiefs,'' when contacted in Harare today.

Kenya Violence

Nathan Shamuyarira, a spokesman for Zanu-PF, didn't answer calls made to his mobile phone. Wayne Bvudzijena, a police spokesman, said while people could celebrate, violence won't be tolerated.

Tupy and other analysts said Zimbabwe is unlikely to experience the sort of ethnic fighting that followed the disputed Dec. 27 vote in Kenya, which left 1,500 people dead and 300,000 displaced. Both Tsvangirai and Mugabe are from the dominant Shona ethnic group and any violence would probably be between the state security apparatus and the public, they said.

``People everywhere are on tenterhooks,'' said Dennis Maparutswa, a corn miller and trader in Chinhoyi, 120 kilometers (70 miles) north of Harare. ``The frustration is terrible and we go from elation to despair constantly.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Brian Latham via the Johannesburg bureau at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net; Antony Sguazzin in Johannesburg at asguazzin@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 1, 2008 10:25 EDT