HARARENAMPA/AFP
Crisis-weary Zimbabweans flocked to cast their ballots yesterday in a fiercely contested election overshadowed by accusations of vote-rigging, as President Robert Mugabe bids to extend his 33-year rule.
The 89-year-old firebrand, Africa's oldest leader, is running for office for the seventh and perhaps final time, after a series of violent crackdowns, economic crises and suspect elections.
"I am sure people will vote freely and fairly, there is no pressure being exerted on anyone," he said as he cast his vote in a Harare suburb. "So far so good."
The veteran leader, a hero of Africa's liberation movement for his fight against white minority rule who then became an international pariah, had vowed Tuesday that he would step down if he loses.
"If you lose you must surrender," he said, insisting: "We have done no cheating."
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai - his perennial rival and reluctant partner in an uneasy coalition for the past four years - has voiced concerns that the electoral roll has been rigged.
The 61-year-old former union leader, who was forced out of the bloody election race in 2008 after 200 of his supporters were killed, told CNN he took Mugabe's promise to step down "with a pinch of salt".
Turnout appeared to be brisk in the urban areas where Tsvangirai has enjoyed his strongest support, and which he must retain to stand any chance of victory.
Voters, some wrapped in blankets on a cold winter morning, started queuing at least four hours before polling stations opened.
"I am happy to have cast my vote. I just want an end to the problems in our country," said 66-year-old Ellen Zhakata as she voted in a Harare township.
"All my children are outside the country because of the economic troubles here. I am so lonely. How I wish they could be working here."
Millions of Zimbabweans were forced to migrate to find work elsewhere after an economic collapse exacerbated by the violence-marred 2008 elections.
While this year's campaign has seen little of the bloodshed of 2008, the MDC on Tuesday handed what it claimed was documentary evidence of plans to rig the election to observers from the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
The dossier, which an SADC observer said raised serious questions, listed examples of duplicate or questionable voters gleaned from an initial examination of the electoral roll.
In June, the non-governmental Research and Advocacy Unit said after examining an incomplete roll that it included a million dead voters or émigrés, as well as over 100 000 people who were more than 100 years old.
"We have seen a lot of duplicate names in the roll, where you see somebody is registered twice, same date of birth, same physical address but with a slight difference in their ID number," junior minister Jameson Timba told AFP.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission was ordered Tuesday to fully publish the roll by 10:00 GMT yesterday, leaving little time to correct problems.
Commission chief Rita Makarau said the delayed access to the roll had affected all parties equally.
"It has not affected one political party, so in a way it remains unfair to all political players," she said.
Some 6,4 million people, around half of the population, are eligible to vote in the presidential, parliamentary and local polls.
A candidate needs 50% of the vote to avoid a run-off.
Final results are expected within five days.