Recent events in Zimbabwe at a glance

(AP) - Recent events in Zimbabwe, where electoral officials said Friday a presidential runoff is necessary:

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March 29: Zimbabweans vote peacefully in presidential, parliamentary and local council elections.

March 31: Zimbabwe Electoral Commission begins announcing results of parliamentary elections.

April 2: Opposition Movement for Democratic Change says its own tallies show its leader Morgan Tsvangirai has won presidential elections outright with 50.3 percent of vote. The same day, official results put parliamentary majority out of reach of President Robert Mugabe's party.

April 4: The ruling ZANU-PF party says there will be a runoff and endorses Mugabe as its candidate. The opposition goes to court to try to force release of all election results. The court rejects the demand.

April 12: Southern African leaders hold an emergency summit on Zimbabwe, which Mugabe skips. Meetings last until the early hours of the next morning and end with a declaration that falls far short of opposition calls for Mugabe's neighbors to pressure him to step down.

April 18: On his nation's independence day, Mugabe devotes his first major speech since the elections to denouncing whites and former colonial ruler Britain.

April 24: China says a shipment of weapons will be returned to Beijing because there was no way to deliver it to Zimbabwe. Unions and rights groups in nations bordering landlocked Zimbabwe had campaigned to stop the shipment, saying that providing Zimbabwe's security forces with weapons could worsen attacks on the opposition.

April 25: Riot police and intelligence officers ransack opposition party headquarters and the offices of independent election monitors, taking material on the vote count and arresting hundreds. Those arrested are later freed.

May 2: Electoral Commission releases presidential results, saying Tsvangirai won the most votes, but not enough to avoid a runoff with Mugabe, the second-place finisher. The opposition, insisting Tsvangirai won outright, proposes a unity government led by Tsvangirai, with no role for Mugabe. Mugabe's party says Mugabe will run in second round.