They came in droves to hear President Mugabe speak - the black farm workers in the backs of lorries or on foot, the white farm owners in their Land Rovers.
The farmers were an incongruous sight as they made their way to the rally in the shopping area of Madziwa, a town 150 km north of Harare in the heartland of support for Mugabe's Zanu-PF party.
"They invited 10 farmers from the area to come. We couldn't refuse. But they're basically putting us on parade here," said one young man in shorts and a wide-brimmed hat, looking distinctly uneasy. "This isn't really up our street," he remarked laconically.
Just yards away, hundreds of Zanu-PF supporters were lined up in dirty T-shirts to steward the crowd and a group of war veterans, on a day off from occupying the farmers' land.
The farmers asked not to be named - their workers had already suffered an "astonishing" amount of intimidation, one said, and there was no point in heaping more trouble on themselves.
They stood in the sun with about 5,000 other people, waiting for the President to speak at one of his last major rallies before Saturday's elections. The organisers were determined to avoid the poor turnout seen at rallies last weekend.
All schools in the area were granted a day off of sorts - no classes but a compulsory political rally field trip. Children in neat blue uniforms lined the road to a field, where the podium was still empty and loudspeakers blared out Bob Marley singing, "One love, let's get together and feel all right".
Several attempts to interview anyone not wearing a Zanu-PF T-shirt were scuppered by party officials. Even the most casual conversation would be terminated by the appearance of unidentified officials, prompting interviewees to cease talking, stare into the distance, or just walk away. Fear and intimidation, it seemed, were not limited to the white farmers.
A young girl warmed up the crowd with a song about how Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, was a "colonial puppet" and had better be careful or else Zanu-PF would "take up our guns and shoot you".
Then President Bob's helicopters touched down and he was whisked through the crowd in a cavalcade of white police jeeps and dusty black Mercedes cars. Security men in suits ran alongside the car.
The crowd surged forward as he leaped from the car and strode from one side to the other, shaking a clenched fist in the air and leading chants of "Forward with the Zanu-PF! Forward with the land invasions!"
Speaking in a mixture of Shona and English, Mr Mugabe stuck with the old mantras of land and history as both the cause of and the solution to Zimbabwe's economic crisis.
"The British must make good the damage that colonialism inflicted on us. Any compensation that will be paid will come from Britain. We cannot tax our people," he said.
Once the elections were over he would "intensify the programme of land acquisition" and "apportion it to anyone we feel like in this country".
"This is not an election gimmick," he stressed.
President Mugabe faces the greatest challenge of his 20-year rule at the weekend elections. An independent opinion poll found last week the opposition MDC would take the majority of the 120 elected seats in the Harare parliament.
It is not clear how the government would function in the case of an MDC victory. And if the election campaign ends as it started - with farm invasions, murders, and mass intimidation - the battles will be physical as well as political.
David Fox of Reuters adds: Former Rhodesian prime minister Mr Ian Smith says he doubts the elections will be free or fair. But he believes nevertheless the Opposition has a chance of defeating Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF.
"There has not been an honest election in this country since 1980," he said in an interview yesterday. "I don't think this one will be any different."
Mr Smith said the Opposition would win by a landslide if the election was not rigged.
Mr Smith's farm is one of over 800 which have been designated for takeover by the government.
In Mount Darwin yesterday, Mr Mugabe told his supporters to strike back "with an axe" if they were attacked. "We want this election to be peaceful (but) I am not saying that if the Opposition provokes you, you must fold your arms. If they attack you, you hit them back with an axe," Mr Mugabe told the enthusiastic rally of 40,000 supporters in a Zanu-PF stronghold.
Meanwhile, the head of the EU Electoral Observer Group denounced Zimbabwe's refusal to give permission for more than 200 foreign observers to monitor the poll on Saturday and Sunday.
"We have never encountered so many problems with accreditation anywhere in the world," Mr Pierre Schori said amid mounting international concern over the election.