In a couple of days, Zimbabwe will be holding its national elections, which include the presidential, parliamentary, senate and local elections. In March 2005, the last election was marked by state violence against both the civil society activists as well as the voters.

The three main presidential candidates are President Robert Mugabe, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and independent candidate Simba Makoni. People expect that the election will bring positive changes in their lives. “This time Zanu-PF is to be dethroned,” a local woman said, BBC News reports.

Makoni and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) blamed President Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party of masterminding to set up the elections, using the security services to intimidate voters. The MDC secretary-general Tendai Biti declared: “The conditions are definitely not conducive for free and fair elections. Our supporters are still being harassed and the police are being used as weapons for intimidation.”

The government stunned the opposition by allowing police into polling stations. “We call on the government of Zimbabwe, including the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, to take concrete actions to address these significant shortcomings, including respecting the human rights and fundamental freedoms of the Zimbabwean people,” spokesman Sean McCormack claimed in a statement.

In addition, Ray Muzenda, a senior official within the Simba Makoni campaign declared that the ZANU-PF supporters threatened him. “There are some senior Zanu-PF activists who came to my house and threatened me for supporting Simba Makoni,” he said quoted by the BBC News.

There are no independent television channels in Zimbabwe and the government controls the single daily newspaper.

The election process will be monitored by representatives from China, Iran and Russia and organizations such as the African Union, as the U.S. and E.U. observers were kept off from the invite list.