Harare, Zimbabwe ? Zimbabwe’s opposition said Friday it was willing to share power with the ruling party, but not with longtime President Robert Mugabe.

Left unresolved was whether a runoff election would be held. Mugabe said he was willing to take part in a second round of voting after official results showed him in second place.

However, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change was cool to the idea, saying a runoff could not be held now in a climate of violence and repression.

Earlier in the day, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission released results from the March 29 presidential election that showed opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai winning the most votes, but not the simple majority needed to avoid a runoff with Mugabe, the second-place finisher.

Tsvangirai’s deputy in the Movement for Democratic Change, Tendai Biti, acknowledged at a news conference that skipping a second round is a gamble that could result in another term for the 84-year-old Mugabe.

Biti would not, as party leaders have done before, categorically rule out participating in a runoff, but said there could not be one “for the simple and good reasons that that country is burning” amid violence and an economic collapse from rampant inflation.

The opposition maintains that a tally giving Tsvangirai anything but outright victory is fraudulent.

“Morgan Tsvangirai should be allowed to form a government of national healing that includes all Zimbabwean stakeholders,” Biti told reporters in Johannesburg, South Africa. “The only condition we give … is that President Mugabe must immediately concede.”

He said the party’s top decision-making body would meet today to decide its next step.

Biti said Mugabe’s safety and that of his family and his assets would be guaranteed, and suggested that he, like other former African leaders, should look to a future of retirement or as a respected statesman mediating in regional crises.

At a news conference in Harare, top Mugabe aide Emmerson Mnangagwa said the president has accepted the outcome and will run in the second round of balloting.

Independent observers had said earlier that Tsvangirai won the most votes, but not the 50 percent plus one vote needed to avoid a runoff.

Mnangagwa countered that it was the opposition that was responsible for election fraud and violence, and accused the United States, Britain and Australia of supporting the MDC.

His version contrasted sharply with independent reports indicating the MDC, up against a ruling party that can call on the army and armed militants, was too weak to run a political campaign – let alone a violent uprising or mass electoral fraud.

“ZANU-PF and all its candidates, especially its presidential candidate, feel aggrieved and were greatly prejudiced by the attempt by the MDC and its sponsors to tamper with the electoral system,” Mnangagwa said.

But he added: “The ZANU-PF presidential candidate, comrade R.G. Mugabe, accepts the results as announced and is offering himself for election in the presidential runoff whose date has yet to be announced.”