The withdrawal of the election petition would now pave the way for Mugabe to be inaugurated for another five-year term, extending his 33-year rule.
But Mugabe’s lawyer Fred Gijima said the case would go ahead.
“An election petition is unwithdrawable,” he told AFP.
“They have to appear in court and present their case. They can’t just withdraw after having made such serious allegations.”
Representatives of Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party were not available for comment.
MDC spokesman said the swearing-in would now go ahead, but that his MDC would not attend the ceremony.
Mugabe meanwhile blasted Western sanctions again on his arrival for a regional leaders’ summit in Malawi.
“You know what the West is like. They want to think for us, take decisions for us and even direct us as to which way we want to go,” he told journalists.
The 15-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) will publish its report on Zimbabwe’s polls during this weekend’s summit, according to South African President Jacob Zuma.
They have to appear in court and present their case. They can’t just withdraw after having made such serious allegations.
Election observers from the regional bloc have said the polls were free, but have not yet commented on the vote’s fairness.
“We were working for the elections to be peaceful, to be free and I think that this has happened,” said Zuma in the Malawian capital Lilongwe.
But the MDC is still taking the fight to the regional bloc which had mediated a power-sharing deal between Mugabe and Tsvangirai four years ago.
Tsvangirai’s deputy Thokozani Khupe and top party official Jameson Timba also travelled to Malawi to present the party’s case to regional heads of state.
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