Zimbabweans vote in election condemned by West

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe casts his vote at a polling station in Harare. Picture / Reuters

HARARE - Zimbabweans have queued in large numbers to vote in polls which President Robert Mugabe says will deliver a clear victory for his ruling party but which Western powers have already condemned as unfair.

Thousands of voters in the capital Harare defied early drizzle to cast their ballots after polling stations opened at 7am (5pm Thursday NZT), while in rural areas people turned out by bicycle and donkey-cart.

Mugabe, immaculate in a crisp blue blazer and blue silk tie as he voted in a poor Harare township, said the parliamentary poll would confirm the people's faith in his ruling Zanu-PF.

"I have just voted to increase the number of winning votes for Zanu-PF. My wife and I have just voted ... The people are behind us. We are going to win, by how much, that is what we are going to see," Mugabe told reporters.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) also expressed confidence, although he again charged the poll was unfair and said Zanu-PF had used repressive policies to guarantee victory.

"We're not happy with the way the electoral playing field has been organised. We all agree on all benchmarks that this is not going to be a free and fair election, but ... I am sure that people will overcome the obstacles," Tsvangirai said after voting in a Harare suburb.

The United States and European Union have already attacked the validity of the election, which follows polls in 2000 and 2002 marred by allegations of fraud and voter intimidation.

Washington said on Wednesday that Mugabe was exploiting food shortages for electoral advantage, a frequent charge by opposition supporters but denied by the government.

"Our understanding is that ruling party candidates have given out government-owned food to draw voters to rallies. And that is, frankly, a despicable practice," US State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters.

Some 5.9 million of Zimbabwe's 12.6 million people are on the voters register, but the opposition and critics say the roll has been inflated by about a million to help Zanu-PF.

Mugabe, eager to regain international respectability, has emphasised that this year's vote should be conducted peacefully, and political violence during the campaign has dropped sharply despite continued MDC charges of voter intimidation.

Electoral officials said voting was going smoothly at polling stations around the country, which are due to close at 7pm (5am Friday NZT). Results are expected within 48 hours.

On Thursday, however, the MDC said one of its candidates in its southern Matabeleland stronghold had disappeared after an attack by Zanu-PF backers on the eve of the poll.

The MDC said Siyabonga Malandu disappeared from his Isinza constituency 150km northeast of Bulawayo.

Mugabe, 81, and in power since independence from Britain in 1980, says a big Zanu-PF win would bolster Zimbabwe's sovereignty in its confrontation with Britain and other Western powers who accuses him of misrule and wrecking the economy.

The state-run Herald newspaper declared in an editorial on Thursday that voters should use their ballots "to defend everything that shapes us as a nation distinct from all others".

Although an underdog in this year's campaign, the MDC targeted several rural areas in hopes of expanding its draw beyond an urban base built from its labour union roots.

Turnout was reported to be high in southern Masvingo province, a key electoral battleground where traditional support for Zanu-PF has been shaken by a party power struggle which sidelined several long-time Mugabe lieutenants from the locally dominant Karanga ethnic group.

But Samuel Chimukoko, drinking beer at a shopping mall in Masvingo's Mucheke township, said he had not voted because he believed his vote would not count for anything.

"I am not wasting my time because I don't think it will make any difference," he said.

- REUTERS