HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- President Robert Mugabe's ruling party headed Sunday toward an overwhelming majority of seats in a newly created Senate in Zimbabwe after a poll marked by widespread voter apathy and deep divisions in the main opposition movement over calls for a boycott.Independent monitors predicted that an overall average turnout for the 31 contested seats across the country at between 15 and 20 percent, the lowest in any national poll since independence in 1980.The leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, thanked supporters for "heeding our call for the boycott of this meaningless election.""We have been vindicated. We were proved right in our assessment of the national sentiment," he said.However, the election campaign left the Movement for Democratic Change bitterly and perhaps irrevocably divided, threatening to destroy the only group to have seriously challenged Mugabe's increasingly autocratic 25-year rule.Tsvangirai argued that participation in Saturday's vote would lend credibility to a poll that was certain to be flawed. But senior members of his party rejected his boycott call and fielded 26 candidates.The split in the opposition assured Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front control of the chamber he abolished in 1990.Mugabe pushed through a constitutional amendment earlier this year to set up the Senate, in what critics said was an attempt to increase his power to dole out jobs and perks in the ailing economy. The new house has no veto powers over legislation passed by the ruling party-dominated lower house.Returns for 11 of the 31 seats up for grabs showed the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front won six seats compared to five for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, according to state radio.Zanu-PF won all three seats in Harare, traditionally sympathetic to the opposition, suggesting that Tsvangirai's boycott call had been obeyed.The Movement for Democratic Change won five seats in its main stronghold, the second city of Bulawayo, where local leaders defied the boycott order.But turnout of voters in Bulawayo was just 6 percent of eligible electors, the independent Zimbabwe Election Support Network said.Only about 10 percent of voters turned out in the dormitory township of Chitungwiza, 25 kilometers (15 miles) south of Harare, a traditional opposition power base which was won by the ruling party.Even in ruling party strongholds, preliminary returns from rural eastern Zimbabwe showed less than 28 percent of voters cast ballots."Turnout was very low indeed. It is a vote of no confidence in the entire process," said Reginald Matchaba-Hove, head of the election support network.Nearly 60 percent of registered voters cast their ballots in the last parliamentary polls in March.The ruling party's candidates were unopposed for 19 of the Senate's 50 elected seats. Mugabe appoints six other seats, and 10 are reserved for traditional leaders, selected by the fiercely pro-government Council of Chiefs.State radio reported no political violence or intimidation that have characterized elections in Zimbabwe since 2000.There were more electoral officials than voters at many polling stations in the capital, Harare, Saturday. Scores of people lined up to buy sugar at supermarkets in northern and eastern parts of the city -- dispersing angrily when stocks ran out at one store, witnesses said. In an adjacent polling station, 13 electoral officials and police officers supervised a single voter casting his ballot.Many have questioned the cost of adding a second chamber at a time of acute shortages of food, gasoline and other essentials.The government estimates the Senate's annual costs at about 60 billion Zimbabwe dollars ($6 million) in a country suffering its worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1980.The often violent seizure of thousands of white-owned commercial farms, coupled with erratic rains, has crippled Zimbabwe's agriculture-based economy.Campaigning for the Senate was muted compared with previous elections, which independent observers said were marred by intimidation and fraud.Some 3.2 million of Zimbabwe's 12 million population were registered to vote. Mugabe did not cast a ballot because the ruling party candidate in his constituency was unopposed.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.