The United States has accused President Robert Mugabe's government of using food aid as a political weapon to get votes in Zimbabwe's run-off election on June 27th.
"We are dealing with a desperate regime here which will do anything to stay in power," said US Ambassador to Zimbabwe James McGee in a video call from Harare, one day after Zimbabwean police held five US and two British diplomats.
Mr McGee told Washington reporters if potential voters wanted food aid they had to show their voting cards, which indicated whether they belonged to Mr Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party or the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
"If you have an MDC card, you can receive food but first you have to give the national identity card to the government officials, which means they will hold onto it until after the election. Again, you will not be able to vote," he said.
Supporters of the ruling party could keep their identity cards and so were free to vote in the election. Mr Mugabe has been in power since Zimbabwe's independence from Britain in 1980.
"The only way you can access food is to give up your right to vote," said Mr McGee. "It is absolutely illegal."
This evening, the country's High Court overturned a police ban on opposition rallies, a lawyer for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said.
"The effect of the order is to allow MDC rallies to proceed. The order simply says that police should not interfere with the MDC rallies. We made an urgent chamber application after police wrote to say the rallies scheduled for this weekend should not continue," said MDC lawyer Charles Kwaramba.
About 4 million Zimbabweans rely on food aid in a country once seen as the region's breadbasket but where inflation is now a staggering 165,000 percent and unemployment 80 per cent.
On Thursday, Mr Mugabe's government suspended the work of all international aid agencies in the southern African country, saying some of them were campaigning for the opposition.
But US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said foreign aid groups were being kicked out because the Mugabe government wanted to be the sole source of food aid.