Tallies from two-thirds of polling stations in Zimbabwe show President Robert Mugabe is heading for a landslide victory, official sources have told wire services.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was left on ballot papers for the one-candidate vote after electoral authorities refused to accept his withdrawal a week ago because of violence against his supporters.
'The tallies are indicating that despite the wishes of our detractors and the propaganda of our enemies, the voter turnout was very big and that we are going to see a landslide victory,' one official who declined to be named told Reuters.
The country's electoral commission has said the count of votes from yesterday's presidential run-off poll has been completed, and it's thought the result will be announced later.
The vote has been widely condemned as a sham.
President Bush has said the United States will press for strong action against Zimbabwe by the United Nations, including an arms embargo.
The decision to go ahead with the poll was condemned around the world and the poll was widely dismissed as illegitimate.
The UN Security Council unanimously expressed deep regret last night and said a free and fair vote had been impossible.
A unanimously agreed statement said it was 'a matter of deep regret' that Zimbabwe held the vote, but some Western diplomats said the text was far too weak.
Western diplomats said the statement was disappointing because it did not say the results would be illegitimate.
Mr Tsvangirai won the first round on March 29 but pulled out of the run-off and took refuge in the Dutch embassy because of state-backed violence he said had killed almost 90 of his followers. He said millions of people stayed away from polling stations despite systematic intimidation.
Many Western leaders urged the African Union to take action at a summit in Egypt on Monday, saying Mugabe's 28 years in power had to end because the political turmoil and economic meltdown in Zimbabwe threatened regional security.
MDC to urge firm stance at African summit
Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change said it would lobby African leaders at the summit.
'The summit has to take a firm position on the transition we seek. It's now a matter of peace and security. We hope the matter gets the urgent attention it deserves. We should not wait for rivers of blood and the complete breakdown of order,' MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said.
The state-run Herald newspaper said there was a record turnout and the election was peaceful. The Herald contradicted international media reports that many Zimbabweans boycotted the ballot and statements by witnesses that government militias forced people to vote for the 84-year-old Mr Mugabe.
'Initial reports from polling stations countrywide indicate that this would be the biggest turnout Zimbabwe has ever had, which is a slap in the face for detractors who claimed this was a 'Mugabe election',' said the paper. It gave no turnout figure.
Mr Chamisa said Mugabe's ZANU-PF planned to continue a violent crackdown to decimate the MDC. 'They stole this election, now they are going to spill more blood.'
He added that security forces planned to launch 'Operation Red Finger' to track down people who abstained. Voters had their little finger dyed with ink.
The MDC said it extended its parliamentary majority from the first elections in March after Mugabe's information minister, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, lost his seat in one of three parliamentary elections held at the same time as the presidential run-off.
Rice urging strong message from UN
African and local election monitors said there had been a low turnout yesterday. Witnesses and poll observers said people had been forced to vote in some areas and their ballots were being checked by ZANU-PF officials.
The MDC's Mr Chamisa criticised South African President Thabo Mbeki, whose quiet diplomacy in Zimbabwe as the designated regional mediator has failed to end the crisis. He is widely accused of being too soft on Mugabe.
'President Mbeki has become part of the problem. ... I don't know why he is trying to resurrect a regime that was rejected by the people,' Mr Chamisa said. He said no African country should recognise the election.
The five-nation East African Community has added its voice to an unprecedented chorus of African criticism of the vote, saying after a meeting in Rwanda on Thursday: 'The election in Zimbabwe cannot be a solution under the prevailing circumstances.' It called for talks between ZANU-PF and the MDC.
The top permanent official of the African Union said there could be no immediate solution to the problem of Zimbabwe.
'I am convinced it will be solved in a credible way. But please give us time to solve it with our heads of state,' AU Commission Chairman Jean Ping said at a foreign ministers' meeting ahead of Monday's summit in Sharm el Sheikh.
Gordon Brown, prime minister of former colonial power Britain, said Zimbabwe had reached a new low with the election. 'We will work with international partners to find a way to close this sickening chapter that has cost so many lives,' he said.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States was working with other UN members on a resolution to send 'a strong message of deterrence' to Mr Mugabe's government over the violence.
But diplomats at the UN said resistance from South Africa, China and Russia meant any sanctions were unlikely to be imposed by the Security Council. Rather they would be imposed by the US, EU and other Western governments.
Vote 'not an election': Tsvangirai
Yesterday Mr Tsvangirai, who says almost 90 of his supporters have been killed, told a news conference: 'What is happening today is not an election. It is an exercise in mass intimidation with people all over the country being forced to vote.'
A witness in Chitungwiza township, south of Harare, told wire services voters were forced to hand the serial number of their ballot paper and their identity details to an official from mr Mugabe's ZANU-PF party so he could see how they voted.
The Zimbabwe Crisis Coalition rights group said village heads had 'assisted' teachers to vote in some rural areas after forcing them to declare they were illiterate.
Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu said the world had the right to intervene to end the crisis.
Archbishop Tutu said African countries should declare Mr Mugabe an illegitimate leader and impose a blockade of landlocked Zimbabwe, including a flight ban.
'A government has the obligation to protect its citizens. If it will not protect them ... or it is unable to do so, then the international community knows now that it has an instrument to intervene,' he told Channel 4 television.
Mr Mugabe, who is in power since independence from Britain in 1980, has presided over Zimbabwe's slide into economic chaos with inflation estimated to have hit at least 2,000,000%. He blames Western sanctions.
