Zimbabwe: Mugabe Warned About Election 'Theft'

By Emma Hurd, Sky News Correspondent

Zimbabwe's opposition leader has warned of renewed unrest in the country if President Robert Mugabe attempts to "steal" this week's election and extend his 33-year grip on power.

Voters go to the polls on Wednesday, five years after the last national vote descended into violence as Mr Mugabe fought to avoid defeat. 

"I am sure there is the potential for unrest if people are not given the opportunity to vote and if the result does not reflect their national mood," Morgan Tsvangarai, the opposition leader and Zimbabwean Prime Minister said.

Mr Tsvangarai's party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has been governing in a tense power-sharing agreement with Mr Mugabe for the past four years.

He believes he has the support to oust the 89-year-old from office, but has flagged up irregularities in the voter registration rolls that could mar the credibility of the election.

Human rights organisations say the existence of up to a million "ghost voters" - people who have died but have not been removed from the electoral register - could be exploited by Mr Mugabe. 

Mr Mugabe addresses a rally in Harare on Sunday

Six hundred African observers, invited to monitor the vote, have reported no incidents of violence in the final days of campaigning.

President Mugabe promised a "free and fair" vote during his final campaign rally in front of a crowd of 40,000 people in the capital, Harare, on Sunday. 

"We are not forcing people to vote this way or that way," he told reporters. 

There are no official opinion polls in Zimbabwe, but Mr Mugabe - now the world's oldest leader - can still count on significant support across the country and the election is expected to be close.

He has shrewdly claimed the credit for the successes of the power-sharing government - while blaming any ongoing problems on the opposition. 

The country's crippled economy has started to recover since the MDC's Tendai Biti took over as finance minister, bringing an end to the food shortages that led to starvation in rural areas. 

The spiralling inflation rate - the Zimbabwean dollar was famously printed in 100 trillion dollar notes - has been tackled by abandoning the local currency in favour of the US dollar and South African rand.

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