HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Zimbabwe's government warned Thursday that it will pull the licenses of any transport workers who heed an opposition call to strike for the release of long-delayed presidential results.

The government has been trying to squash political dissent after a March 29 vote that longtime President Robert Mugabe is widely believed to have lost.

With Zimbabwe's economy devastated by soaring inflation and 80 percent unemployment, the opposition has had difficulty getting the few Zimbabweans with jobs to join the nationwide strike.

But the state-run Herald newspaper said some public buses had stopped running.

The buses "have been deliberately withdrawing their services since Monday," Transport Minister Chris Mushohwe told the paper. Mushohwe said these workers were violating the terms of their licenses, which require them to provide public transportation.

He said that any licenses that were withdrawn would not be renewed.

Zimbabweans have been waiting for results of the presidential vote for nearly three weeks, and reports have increased in recent days about opposition supporters being arrested or attacked.

The international community has criticized the delay in releasing poll results.

In Zimbabwe, meanwhile, riot police and soldiers have fanned out across the country in a show of force.

Zimbabwe's electoral commission says it is verifying votes and investigating anomalies, but the opposition says President Robert Mugabe is using the delay to secure his 28-year grip on power.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai says he won the March 29 election outright. Independent tallies show Tsvangirai won, but not by enough to prevent a runoff.

Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change has failed in a series of attempts to force the release of results through the courts or appeals to regional leaders. The party has been reluctant to agree to a runoff, arguing that a second round would be rigged by Mugabe's cronies.

The government appeared to be readying for a runoff vote Thursday.

"The unofficial results collated point to a run-off between President Mugabe and Tsvangirai," Former Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa told the Herald. Chinamasa dismissed British declarations that Mugabe lost and international appeals for the speedy release of results as insulting attempts to reassert colonial influence.

Mugabe's administration has repeatedly blamed the country's economic meltdown - sparked by a land reform program in which farms seized from a white elite were handed out to Mugabe's cronies - on the devastation wrought by colonialism.