Zimbabweans voted today in peaceful polls that President Robert Mugabe proclaimed were as fair as any in the world.
However, international observers said the polls were conducted in "an atmosphere of intimidation".
Officials and an independent monitoring body said tens of thousands of voters were turned away from polling stations across the country for a variety of reasons.
Foreign critics led by the United States and the European Union dismissed today's parliamentary vote as a sham, echoing opposition charges that Mr Mugabe (81), has used repressive laws, intimidation and even vital food supplies to engineer victory.
Some 5.9 million of Zimbabwe's 12.6 million people are on the voters roll, but the opposition and critics say it has been inflated by about one million "ghost voters" to help Mr Mugabe's ZANU-PF party.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said the poll was fundamentally unfair, but remained upbeat as voting closed.
"We are happy because our supporters heeded our call to go early to vote ... we also expect a massive rural turnout," the MDC's acting director of elections, Lucia Matibenga, said.
But she said some places in eastern Manicaland Province ran out of ballot papers, and expressed concern that at some stations in cemtral Masvingo province 90 per cent of people were assisted to vote. Electoral officials usually help only the illiterate, blind and elderly.
Officials say they expect first results within hours, although the final vote tally may take up to 48 hours.
Police arrested two British journalists from London's Sunday Telegraph for working without accreditation, required by strict media laws introduced three years ago by Mr Mugabe's government.
Mr Mugabe predicted the election would award a clear mandate to his ruling ZANU-PF, reaffirming the party's 25-year grip on the crisis-racked southern African nation.
"Everybody has seen that they are free and fair elections. There can never be anywhere else where elections can be as free as they have been here," the president said after voting in a poor Harare township.
"The people are behind us. We are going to win, by how much, that is what we are going to see."
The European Union dismisses the poll as "phoney" and Washington says Mr Mugabe has exploited food shortages - a frequent charge by the opposition but denied by the government.
The need for food aid reflects a deepening crisis in what was once one of Africa's most prosperous nations and a breadbasket for the region. It is now crippled by soaring inflation, unemployment and shortages of fuel and hard currency