$100 fee for Zimbabwe monitors

Fears that voting procedures will favour Zanu-PF

Zimbabwe is charging a fee of $100 to foreign observers and journalists covering the election later this month.

The deadline for voter registration passed on Monday, amid accusations that the registration process has been unfair.

The opposition says attacks on its supporters by the ruling party are on the increase.

And in a further attempt to raise revenues, the government has clamped down on bicycle registration fees.

Zimbabweans are due to vote on 24-26 June in an election which has already been dogged by accusations of fraud and intimidation.

Accreditation charge

A change to the electoral act on Friday introduced a compulsory fee for election monitors for the first time.

There was no official announcement of an accreditation fee for journalists, but foreign correspondents were being charged the same US$100 fee as the observers.

Zimbabweans checked that their names were on the voters' roll

Officials said the fee was to cover the costs incurred in the registration process.

Political analyst John Makumbe said the charge was a means of discouraging foreign observers.

"How can you ask someone to pay $100 for observing your elections? It is unconstitutional," Mr Makumbe said.

"This is not going to solve our foreign exchange shortages," he added.

Voters' roll

Zimbabweans queued to check that their names were on the voters' roll before the deadline for changes passed.

One report from Harare said a disproportionate number of white people had turned out to check the list.

Whites are seen as likely opposition supporters in the election.

The Zimbabwe Human Rights Association has expressed concern over the state of the voters' roll, saying it included the names of some dead people and excluded others.

"Names of some people who have voted during the previous elections are not appearing on the voters' roll," the association's director Munyaradzi Bidi told the state-run Ziana news agency.

The main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, says 30 of its supporters have now died in increasing violence, and 10,000 displaced.

A BBC correspondent who visited the village of Haruna in the east of the country said 18 huts belonging to opposition supporters - including one MDC electoral candiate - had been burnt to the ground.

The government accuses the opposition of inciting violence and insists the police are doing their best to control it.

Bike bust

The Harare authorities have confiscated hundreds of bicycles from commuters who had not paid their annual licence fee of US$1, the state-owned Herald newspaper reported.

"Scores of people who had cycled into town for work had to walk back home after failing to raise the required fines" on Wednesday, the paper said.

Fuel shortages caused by foreign exchange problems have already hit commuters using cars and minibus taxis.