Zimbabwe's opposition says it will go ahead with a rally in the capital, Harare, on Sunday, after a court overturned a police ban.

The Movement for Democratic Change says its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, plans to attend the march, which comes ahead of a presidential run-off vote on Friday.

President Robert Mugabe has accused the MDC of lying about political violence.

South Africa has sent two mediators in what a BBC correspondent says may be a final effort to prevent the poll.

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Mr Mbeki was in Harare himself only a few days ago, where he tried to persuade both Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai to set up a government of national unity instead.

Secret campaign

The opposition plans to decide on Monday whether to compete in the election at all, fearing a further escalation in violence and saying it is nearly impossible to campaign.

The MDC has filed court appeals against police bans on a series of opposition gatherings.

Its secretary general, Tendai Biti, is in custody accused of treason, and the party says its members have been beaten, and its supporters evicted from their homes, forcing it to campaign in near secrecy.

It says at least 70 of its supporters have been killed.

Mr Mugabe was quoted by the state-run Herald newspaper as saying that the MDC was making such claims "so that they can later say the elections were not free and fair. Which is a damn lie!"

The president told supporters at a campaign rally in the southern city of Bulawayo on Friday that he would "never allow an event like an election to reverse our independence, our sovereignty."

"Only God who appointed me will remove me - not the MDC, not the British," he said.

Mr Mugabe has accused the MDC of acting in the interest of Britain, the former colonial power, and other Western countries.

New footage emerged on Friday, shot by US embassy staff, showing ruling party militias armed with sticks apparently hunting for MDC supporters in a township in the capital, Harare.

Zimbabwe's immediate neighbours have added their voice to increasing international concern over the validity of the run-off.

On Friday Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, one of Mr Mugabe's closest allies, urged him to stop the violence.

Tanzanian Foreign Minister Bernard Membe, head of an election monitoring team, told the BBC earlier this week that violence appeared to be "escalating throughout Zimbabwe".

Nigerian Nobel-winning writer Wole Soyinka told the BBC that Mr Mugabe had ruined Zimbabwe with a "scorched earth policy" and that Zimbabweans were primed to "throw off this yoke by all means necessary".

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(BBC)

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