Zimbabweans began voting in a one-sided presidential run-off on Friday after President Robert Mugabe defied mounting world condemnation and calls to postpone an election which the opposition says is a farce.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who beat Mugabe in the first round of voting in March, withdrew from the run-off last Sunday over violence and intimidation of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters by the ruling ZANU-PF party.
Voting began shortly after 6:00 a.m. British time and turnout was thin at some polling stations in the capital Harare, unlike the March election when people began lining up from the early hours. Polling is due to end at 6:00 p.m. British time.
"I am here to exercise my vote. It does not make a difference for me (that only Mugabe is standing)," Tabeth Masuka said at a polling station in Harare's Avondale suburb.
"I will not be voting, I think it does not make sense to vote when one of the candidates has already withdrawn from that contest," said Terrence Mukumba, a Harare-based bank employee.
The poll has been widely condemned and a security committee of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) called for the vote to be postponed, saying Mugabe's re-election as the only candidate could lack legitimacy.
But Mugabe, 84, planning to extend his 28-year-old uninterrupted rule, remained defiant and even ridiculed African leaders who said he should delay the election.
"Even today they are saying do away with the election, what stupidity is that," Mugabe said at his last campaign rally on Thursday, where he urged people to vote in large numbers.
Mugabe has barred observers from Western countries critical of his government and all but refused entry to hundreds of foreign journalists who were keen to cover the election.
A grouping of local observers has said its members were harassed and intimidated by government supporters and that they would not observe Friday's vote.
Zimbabwe's electoral authorities forged ahead with preparations for the poll, deploying thousands of polling officers across the country and distributing ballot boxes and papers to more than 8,000 polling stations.
Police said they would deploy officers to prevent any trouble.
