President Mugabe fights to retain power in Zimbabwe polls

Vote-counting in Zimbabwe's hotly contested election began late Wednesday with both President Robert Mugabe and main challenger, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai expressing confidence of victory.

Partial results are expected to come out today, said Rita Makarau, chairwoman of the Zimbabwe Election Commission, which has until Monday to release full results. Five presidential candidates are in the race including Mugabe and Tsvangirai, the current prime minister.

Makarau dismissed allegations from Tsvangirai's party that the election commission rigged the polls for Mugabe.

"I believe that the election is free and fair," she told journalists. "Maybe the reports that will come out will vindicate my view of the election as free and fair."

Zimbabwe's police have vowed to crack down on any attempts to leak early results from Tuesday's polls, which means results could trickle in slowly over hours - although political parties will have immediate access to individual results posted at polling stations.

Police thwarted plans to collate election results posted outside polling stations by declaring it an offence to send results via text messaging or the internet, said Frances Lovemore, a senior official at the Zimbabwe Election Support Network.

"At a lot of the polling stations, they've locked the public out. They're clamping down now," she told Reuters.

Mugabe, 89, is fighting to extend his 33-year rule in the election pitting him against Tsvangirai, prime minister for the last four years under a unity government brokered after a contested 2008 vote was marred by violence.

Mugabe has been at the helm since 1980, the only president the nation has known since it gained independence from Britain. A win would extend his time in office to a potential 38 years.

Despite dragging his country's economy into the gutter, Mugabe enjoys support in the country that continues to surprise Western observers. This is largely because he has expropriated land and property belonging to foreigners and simply handed it over to locals.

Last week, Mugabe told critics of his regime from the United Nations and the Western countries in general to "Keep your pink nose out of our affairs, please."

The election is being held under a new constitution endorsed in a referendum in March that limits the president to two five-year terms. Mugabe is allowed to seek another term because it does not apply retroactively.

Referring to alleged voting manipulation by Mugabe supporters, Tsvangirai's party, the Movement for Democratic Change, said it was encouraged by a large turnout.

"Zimbabweans, we remain hopeful that the shenanigans were rendered useless by your massive support," the party said on its Facebook page.

Days before the election, Tsvangirai, 61, said "there is clear evidence of manipulation" in poll preparations. He said ballot papers cast in his favor during early voting were discovered tossed in a bin.

Rights groups accuse the government of intimidating and beating up opposition supporters and interfering with the polls. Mugabe's party denies the accusations.