(CNN) -- Zimbabwe officials on Saturday began recounting ballots from the country's disputed election in a move that could overturn a claimed victory by opponents to President Robert Mugabe.
Robert Mugabe delivers his speech at the 28th Independence Celebrations in Harare.
The electoral commission began recounting parliamentary and presidential ballots in 23 of Zimbabwe's 210 voting districts Saturday morning, officials said.
The country's High Court cleared the way for the partial recount Friday when it rejected a petition by the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
The MDC argued the recount would be illegal since the initial presidential results were never announced.
The delayed presidential election results have raised fears that Mugabe, who has been in office for 28 years, is trying to cling to power.
MDC presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai has declared himself the winner over Mugabe, based on vote tallies posted outside precincts.
The electoral commission had already announced the MDC won the majority of the parliamentary seats in the March 29 election.
However, Mugabe's party, ZANU-PF, has vowed to contest 16 seats in that race, and it says there was cheating. It isn't clear whether those seats are among the constituencies to be recounted.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said the recount would take five days.
Meanwhole, a Chinese ship loaded with arms and ammunition bound for Zimbabwe has turned away from a South African port after dockworkers refused to handle the cargo, their representative said.
The An Yue Jiang sat anchored outside Durban's harbor in South Africa on Thursday. The ship was "probably going to the nearest port, which is Maputo, Mozambique, from where it could also be transshipped to Zimbabwe," David Cockroft, general secretary of the International Transport Workers Federation, told CNN International on Friday. E-mail to a friend
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All About Zimbabwe • Robert Mugabe • Morgan Tsvangirai
Some results from the recount of the Zimbabwe election have been released. Both the Movement for Democratic Change and the ruling Zanu-PF party have retained one seat. A representative Zanu-PF commented on the seat they  retained. "We are happy to retain the seat and we believe the same will happen in all the constituencies where recounting is taking place," they said.


Zimbabwe election officials begun to recount 23 out of 210 constituencies' ballots after president Mugabe's Zanu-PF party accused the opposition party, the MDC, of bribing election officials. Several arrests have since been made in relation to the recount.

The ballots are from the parliamentary elections held on March 29. The opposing MDC previouly made an appeal to Harare's High Court for the recount to be stopped. However it was rejected, Justice Antonia Guvava said "I find no merit in the application... Accordingly, the application is dismissed with costs." Despite this MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who is currently staying in South Africa for his own safety, claims to have won both parliamentary and presidential elections outright.