ZIMBABWE's long-serving President, Dr Robert Mugabe, has been dealt an embarrassing blow by news that only one-third of Zimbabwe's 4.9 million voters bothered to turn out in last weekend's presidential elections.
As the only declared candidate left in the race, Dr Mugabe is nevertheless assured of victory. Two weak rival candidates, including the former prime minister of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, Bishop Abel Muzorewa, announced they were pulling out of the election last week.
Despite dominating the campaign from the start, Dr Mugabe had campaigned hard to prove that he enjoyed a strong mandate for a fourth term of office. In the month before the election, the 72-year-old president addressed more than 40 campaign rallies around the country in an effort to battle public apathy.
He also needed a high turn-out to score a point against the four main opposition parties, which were calling for a boycott of the poll. Zimbabwean human rights and opposition groups claim that the country is now a de facto one-party state, with an electoral law that is overwhelmingly biased in favour of Dr Mugabe and his party, the Zimbabwean African National Union (Zanu).
"It will be a major blow to Mugabe, especially considering how hard he has been campaigning," said Mr John Makumbe, political analyst at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare.
"They (Zanu) will try to put up a brave face by calling the opposition cowards and continuing to dismiss demands for constitutional reforms. . but I think once the dust has settled, they will try to do something about it," he said.
Dr Mugabe and his party have ruled Zimbabwe continuously since it was created from the former white-run state of Rhodesia 16 years ago.
Preliminary figures released by the country's electoral commission showed that only 1,537,086 people had voted in 110 of the country's 120 constituencies, home to around 4.5 million potential voters. Last night votes were still being counted in the remaining 10 constituencies, home to a potential 437,930 voters.
The final turn-out is to be announced today. If the same pattern of voting emerges in the remaining 10 constituencies, the final figure should be around 35 per cent, compared to the 54 per cent turnout in the 1990 presidential election. The overwhelming majority of these votes are likely to be for Dr Mugabe, even though his rivals' names remained on the ballot because of their late withdrawals.
Of particular concern to Dr Mugabe will be the very low turnouts in many urban areas, where by Sunday morning it was already clear that some constituencies would struggle to make double figures. In the poor Harare constituency of Mbare East, for example, seven of the 16 polling stations failed to process as many as 10 voters on Saturday, the first day of the poll. The busiest polling station had collected 56 votes.
The abysmal response to the election in urban areas reflects the growing alienation of the more sophisticated urban electorates. In recent years black town-dwellers have born the brunt of Zimbabwe's economic decline, the result of years of drought, and of economic reforms imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Polling was brisker in rural areas, where Zanu has maintained its traditionally strong support by improving some services and distributing food and seed in times of drought. Rural electorates are thought to be particularly susceptible to Dr Mugabe's campaign promises - repeated at each election - to seize land and wealth from the country's remaining whites.