Mugabe hails Zimbabwe poll, West calls it a sham  

HARARE - President Robert Mugabe proclaimed Zimbabwe's parliamentary elections as fair as any in the world, but the United States said they had been conducted in an atmosphere of intimidation.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) accused 81-year-old Mugabe -- in power since Zimbabwe's independence from Britain in 1980 -- of using repressive laws, intimidation and even vital food supplies to engineer victory.

Releasing partial voting details after polls closed, Zimbabwe Electoral Commission officials said more than 94,000 people had been turned away from polling stations in seven of Zimbabwe's 10 provinces. They gave no reasons.

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), grouping 35 non-governmental organisations, put the figure much higher, saying an average of 25 per cent of would-be voters had been turned away from polling stations.

"Of those turned away, a significant number were either not aware of new constituency boundaries or were turned away for failing to produce proper identification," ZESN chairman Reginald Matchaba-Hove told a news conference.

Mugabe, who dismisses the MDC as a stooge of Western powers opposed to his seizures of white-owned farms for landless black Zimbabweans, predicted the election would deliver a clear mandate for his ruling ZANU-PF.

"There can never be anywhere else where elections can be as free as they have been here," Mugabe said after voting in a poor township of the capital Harare.

But foreign critics led by the United States and the European Union -- who blame Mugabe for a political and economic crisis in the southern African nation -- dismissed the elections as a sham, although violence was sharply down on previous polls.

"Generally we'd say that the campaigning took place in an atmosphere of intimidation," US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters in Washington.

The MDC, which emerged from urban trade unions, accuses Mugabe of bringing a once prosperous economy to its knees through mismanagement that has triggered rocketing inflation, high unemployment and food shortages.

Many analysts expect ZANU-PF to beat an opposition battered by years of government pressure. The MDC came close to victory in parliamentary polls in 2000 and a presidential election in 2002, blaming fraud for its defeats.

Electoral Commission officials said they expected first results within hours, although the final vote tally might take up to 48 hours.

They said that by 2pm (12pm NZt) almost 1.2 million people had cast votes in eight provinces.

A total of 5.78 million of Zimbabwe's 12.6 million people are on the voters' roll, but the MDC says it has been inflated by about 1 million "ghost voters" to help ZANU-PF.

The MDC remained upbeat despite saying the poll was fundamentally unfair.

"We are happy because our supporters heeded our call to go early to vote ... We also expect a massive rural turnout," said the MDC's acting director of elections, Lucia Matibenga.

But she said some places in the eastern Manicaland Province ran out of ballot papers and expressed concern that at some polling stations in central Masvingo province 90 per cent of people were assisted to vote. Electoral officials usually help only the illiterate, blind and elderly.

Police arrested two British journalists from London's Sunday Telegraph for working without accreditation, required by strict media laws introduced three years ago by Mugabe's government.

"The Sunday Telegraph has had no communication with either of the journalists for several hours, nor from the Zimbabwean authorities," said a spokesman for the newspaper.

"The paper is obviously concerned for their welfare and is endeavouring to secure their release," he said.

A total of 120 parliamentary seats are being contested but Mugabe appoints a further 30 MPs. He has said ZANU-PF hopes for a two-thirds majority that will let it change the constitution at will.

- REUTERS