Party Drops Legal Dispute Over Election in Zimbabwe HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, said on Friday that it was withdrawing a court challenge over disputed election results that gave President Robert G. Mugabe a commanding victory, saying that it did not think it would get a fair hearing. The party said in a document filed with the Constitutional Court that it would not participate in a hearing on its challenge that was scheduled for Saturday. It asked that the court be advised of the withdrawal. In a related matter, the party had not received by late Friday evening a court judgment on its demand that crucial election material be released by the country's Election Commission. Party officials think the material will help corroborate their contention that as many as one million eligible voters were prevented from voting and that ballots had been cast in the names of dead people. Nelson Chamisa, a senior party official, said in an interview that it was not possible to proceed with Saturday's hearing without full information and the evidence being sought from the Election Commission. "There is no value in us going to the courts without the proof that is beyond doubt," Mr. Chamisa said. Without the election documentation, the party's legal challenge would most likely be thrown out, he added, which would undermine the opposition party's position. "We are refusing to give Mugabe legitimacy through his courts," he said. A lawyer representing the Movement for Democratic Change, Chris Mhike, said that even if a last-minute ruling forced election officials to release the material sought, there would be no time to analyze the voting data and present it in the hearing on Saturday. After violent and disputed elections in 2008, African regional leaders forced Mr. Mugabe to form a shaky power-sharing coalition with Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition party. Mr. Mugabe, 89, was reported to have garnered 61 percent of the votes cast in the presidential election on July 31 to Mr. Tsvangirai's 34 percent. Mr. Tsvangirai described the election as "a monumental fraud," and a party spokesman, Douglas Mwonzora, said party officials were "baffled" by the reluctance of election officials to make available the requested material, even after regional and African mediators said the election had been peaceful and fair. Mr. Mugabe's party has denied the accusations of vote rigging. The president said in a national address on Monday that the outcome was irreversible and that the losers must accept defeat.