Zimbabwe election 'being rigged'

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Zimbabwe's opposition leader has accused the ruling party of trying to steal Thursday's elections. Morgan Tsvangirai said "disgusting, massive fraud" had been committed and said Zimbabweans should "defend their vote", without elaborating. Average turnout was below 50%, chief elections officer Lovemore Sekeramai said. The Zimbabwe Election Support Network, which has some 6,000 observers in the 8,000 polling stations, says that some 10% of would-be voters were turned away, either because their names were not on the electoral roll, they did not have the right identity papers, or they were in the wrong constituency. One man told the BBC News website that his name had been taken off the register since the last election and yet the name of his aunt was still there, although she had died six years ago. Human rights groups say that hundreds of thousands of "ghost voters" appear on the electoral roll of some 5.8m. They fear these entries could be used to record fraudulent votes.