Zimbabwe's main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) expressed fears Monday of vote-rigging ahead this weekend's elections, claiming that millions of extra ballot papers had been ordered by the electoral commission.

Ballot Box

"The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has not explained why they have ordered nine million ballot papers when only 5.9 million are registered to vote," Chamisa told AFP.

"Also they have not justified why 600,000 postal ballots were printed when the people who qualify for postal ballots don't exceed 20,000.

"Clearly you can see that the vote-rigging machinery is already in motion."

Chamisa said that his party, led by Morgan Tsvangirai, had only been informed over the weekend that security forces who will be busy guarding polling booths on election day had begun postal voting.

The head of the police services has already openly called for the re-election of President Robert Mugabe in Saturday's joint parliamentary and presidential elections, saying he would not accept any other "puppet" leader.

The MDC claimed last week that the voters' register was filled with tens of thousands of ghost voters, saying an independent analyst had unearthed 90,000 unaccounted names in 28 rural constituencies.

There are 210 constituencies in all.

In a report released last week, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said that the electoral process in Zimbabwe was so seriously flawed as to "undermine any meaningful prospect of free and fair elections".

Mugabe won the country's last presidential elections in 2002 which the opposition and western observers charged were rigged.

As well as facing a challenge from Tsvangirai, Mugabe is also being taken on at the ballot box by his former finance minister Simba Makoni.

On Saturday Mugabe made a defiant campaign speech saying the Movement for Democratic Change would never rule during his lifetime.

"It will never happen as long as we are still alive, those (of us) who planned the liberation struggle.... it will never happen," Mugabe told thousands of supporters at a campaign rally in the capital Harare.

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