Zimbabwe's ruling party geared up for a final battle to save Robert Mugabe's 28-year presidency, saying Thursday it was ready for an election run-off with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

While state media said a run-off was now the most likely outcome after no clear winner emerged from Saturday's election, a government spokesman said Mugabe's party’ was ready for a new battle in the second round.

Tsvangirai's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has already declared its leader passed the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a run-off and took control of parliament in the early hours of the morning.

While diplomatic sources say

intense negotiations are under way to persuade Mugabe to exit gracefully after 28 years in power, Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga indicated Mugabe was in no mood to step aside.

"ZANU-PF is ready for a run-off, we are ready for a resulting victory," said Matonga, who is also a leading ZANU-PF deputy.

Mugabe has not been seen in public since polling day but Matonga denied that he was in any mood for surrender.

"He is very much alive and kicking and is anxiously awaiting the results as well."

But while the parliamentary election has now been decided, there has still been no news on the outcome of the simultaneous presidential contest.

However results were expected to be announced at the very latest by the end of Friday, the sources said.

The commission is first due to announce the outcome of the contest for the largely toothless upper house of parliament, the senate.

Frustrated with the silence from the commission, the MDC pre-emptively released its own results on Wednesday indicating that Tsvangirai had won the presidency outright with 50.2 percent of votes against 43.8 percent for Mugabe.

However a report in Thursday's state-run Herald newspaper predicted that Tsvangirai would "fall far short" of the total needed for an outright victory and that "a run-off appears the most likely outcome".