(BRUSSELS) - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Sunday that the Zimbabwe opposition leader's decision to quit a presidential run-off was "understandable," deploring the election as a "travesty of democracy."

"The withdrawal of Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai from the second round of the presidential elections in Zimbabwe is understandable, given the unacceptable systematic campaign of violence, obstruction and intimidation led by the Zimbabwean authorities," Solana said in a statement.

"In these conditions, the elections have become a travesty of democracy. They are certainly not worthy of the African continent of today," he added.

Earlier Sunday Tsvangirai pulled out of Zimbabwe's election run-off, saying violence had made a fair vote impossible, in a move that virtually hands victory to President Robert Mugabe.

Also terming Tsvangirai's decision as "understandable," a statement from EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel said the move "means this second round of the presidential election can no longer be considered valid."

"We now expect that the African leaders who will meet at the AU (African Union) summit later this week in Egypt will condemn in the strongest terms the current situation in Zimbabwe and will do their utmost to resolve this crisis for the sake of Zimbabwean people and of democracy in Africa," Michel said.

The European Union's Slovenian presidency said that it "deeply deplores the circumstances" that led to Tsvangirai's decision to throw in the towel and urged free elections.

"For the resolution of the current crisis as well as for the future of Zimbabwe it is of crucial importance that Zimbabweans have the possibility to exercise their fundamental democratic right to vote and freely express their political will," it said in a statement.

Tsvangirai made his announcement after hundreds of stick-wielding youths gathered at the venue of his party's main pre-election rally, and following a meeting of his Movement for Democratic Change to decide whether to withdraw from the election.

Up to 1,000 youths gathered at the rally grounds in the capital Harare before moving on to the nearby headquarters of the ruling ZANU-PF party, witnesses and AFP journalists said.

Police officers and election observers had taken up positions nearby.

Tsvangirai beat Mugabe in the March first round of the vote -- and the ruling party lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since independence.

But official results showed the MDC leader failed to achieve an outright majority of votes needed to become head of state without a run-off.

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