General elections were held in Zimbabwe on 29 March 2008 to elect the President and Parliament. Because of Zimbabwe's dire economic situation, the elections were expected to provide incumbent President Robert Mugabe with his toughest electoral challenge to date. Mugabe's opponents were critical of the handling of the electoral process, and the government was accused of planning to rig the election. Human Rights Watch said that the election was likely to be "deeply flawed."No official results were announced for more than a month after the first round. The failure to release results was strongly criticised by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, which unsuccessfully sought an order from the High Court to force their release. An independent projection placed its leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the lead, but without the majority needed to avoid a second round, whilst the MDC declared that Tsvangirai won a narrow majority in the first round and initially refused to participate in any second round. After the recount and the verification of the results, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) announced on 2 May that Tsvangirai won 47.9% of the vote and Mugabe 43.2%, necessitating a run-off, which was to be held on 27 June 2008. Despite Tsvangirai's continuing claims to have won a first round majority, he decided to participate in the second round. The period following the first round was marked by political violence. ZANU–PF and the MDC each blamed the other's supporters for perpetrating the violence; Western governments and prominent Western organisations blamed ZANU–PF for the violence. On 22 June 2008, Tsvangirai announced that he was withdrawing from the run-off, describing it as a "violent sham" and saying that his supporters risked being killed if they voted for him. The second round of elections went ahead with Mugabe as the only actively participating candidate, although Tsvangirai's name remained on the ballot. Mugabe won the second round by an overwhelming margin and was sworn in for another term as president on 29 June.In the parliamentary elections, ZANU–PF lost its majority in the House of Assembly for the first time since independence in 1980, as the two factions of the MDC won most of the seats; a month after the election, the MDC factions merged.