Zimbabwe’s Electoral Commission (ZEC) has come under-fire from a new source after the National Patriotic Front’s losing candidate, Agrippa Bopela Masiyakurima accused the organisation of inflating figures in the Mutare North constituency where he lost to Zanu PF Manicaland chairman Mike Madiro.

According to Masiyakurima, the electoral body failed to tally its figures in the hotly-contested constituency, claiming ZEC officials transposed his votes with those of his opponent Madiro, NewsDay reported on Friday.

“We had instances where we know the numbers of certain centres, but at some centres after the voting the numbers had doubled and we don’t know why? This election was rigged in Madiro’s favour, there is no doubt about that,” he said.

“The numbers on the V11 forms and the results they produced are totally different. I was surprised with some figures and I can even show you what happened and there are a few V11 forms that are missing and I believe that they swapped my votes and gave them to Madiro.”

Masiyakurima said the constituency had 38,000 registered voters.

“When they announced the results, fthey first said Madiro had almost 6,000 votes and they said I had garnered 3,000,” he said.

“Wednesday they said that Madiro had almost 15,000 votes and I had 6 000. They are even failing to tally the figures and they are trying to rectify the figures. The figures keep changing and we don’t even know what is happening.

“They are still failing to tally the figures and this is a stolen election; they are playing around with figures, but we had difficulties in coming up with the election results, some VII forms that we are seeing are not stamped.”

Masiyakurima has demanded a re-run in the constituency.