Zimbabwean voters are going to elect 120 lawmakers of a 150-member parliament on Thursday, with President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and the main opposition locked in a two-horse contest.

Though five political parties are contesting the southern African country's sixth parliamentary elections, it is largely seen as a two-horse race between ZANU-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

ZANU-PF has been ruling the country since Zimbabwe attained political independence on April 18, 1980 from former colonial ruler Britain. However, in last parliamentary elections held in 2000, the party just got a feeble majority with 62 seats. Its main rival, the MDC, a party launched just one year before that election, won 57 seats.

Zimbabwe's Parliament, also called House of Assembly has 150 members: 120 elected for a five-year term in single-seat constituencies and 12 appointed members by president, eight governors and 10 elected chiefs.

ZANU-PF predicted it will win over 75 elected seats in Thursday's elections, with the opposition getting about 36, and about three going to independents.

However, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai disagreed, saying economic hardship would cause voters to cast ballots against Mugabe and his administration's policies.

Zimbabwe's economy has shrunk 50 percent over the past five years. Unemployment stands at least at 70 percent. Agriculture, the economic base, has collapsed and at least 70 percent of the population live in poverty.

Some local observers also predicted a strong opposition challenge, after opposition leaders spent the last five years quietly building support after 2000 elections.

The March 31 elections are being held under guidelines established by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) chiefs of state in their latest summit in Mauritius, 2004.

In accordance with decisions adopted by members of the regional body, the Zimbabwean government made some changes to electoral law in order to guarantee transparency, credibility and confidence in the results of these one-day elections.

The elections will be held over one day instead of the usual two-day vote, in an attempt to minimize opportunities for rigging.

In the previous elections, ballots were collected in wooden ballot boxes, later transferred from polling stations to scrutiny centers, but this time vote count will be done in the polling stations.

Observers from the 13-member SADC, the African Union, the Non-Aligned Movement and the United Nations, and 29 local civic organizations will monitor the elections.

The United States, the European Union and the Commonwealth, a group of mainly former British colonies, are excluded.

Zimbabwe and Britain have been locked up in a diplomatic tussle for land since 2000 after Zimbabwe began seizing farms from white farmers, who owned the bulk of the country's arable land, to resettle landless peasants.

The seizures were prompted by Britain's refusal to honor several promises it made, including as part of an independence package for Zimbabwe in 1980, to fund land reform and resettlement in the southern African country.

Instead, London has turned around, and vehemently opposed Zimbabwe's land policies, and mobilized other western countries and organizations, including the Commonwealth, to pressure Harare to relent on the issue.

Zimbabwe pulled out of the Commonwealth, in 2003 after it extended its controversial suspension of Zimbabwe, on grounds of alleged human rights violations.

Zimbabwe denied the charges, and instead accused Britain and its close allies, including Australia, Canada and New Zealand, of using the allegations to build up international opposition to the country's land policies.

The US government, which recently extended sanctions against Zimbabwe, also issued a travel warning for its citizens traveling to the southern African country even though it acknowledged that political violence was low and campaigns were going on peacefully.

Source: Xinhua