Zimbabwe election: country heads to the polls The MDC has alleged that election officials biased towards Mr Mugabe's Zanu PF will embark on a "go-slow" at polling stations in urban areas where the concentration of their supporters is high, in a move "calculated to disenfranchise," according to MDC spokesman Douglas Mwonzora. "We are just hoping that the people of Zimbabwe will mobilise in sufficient numbers to frustrate efforts to rig the vote," he added. Mr Mugabe, fighting his seventh election since independence from Britain in 1980, insisted there was no need to rig, saying the people of Zimbabwe "still believe in Zanu PF." "We don't do things like that, we have never done it," he said. Mr Mugabe was speaking at a rare press conference for the international media at State House, and struck a conciliatory note with Morgan Tsvangirai, who has challenged him for power for the past 11 years and accused his agents of brutalising him and his family throughout. I've got my fair share of criticisms and also dealt back rights and lefts and upper cuts. But that's the game," Mr Mugabe said. "Although we boxed each other, it's not as hostile as before," he said. It's all over now. We can shake hands. A Zimbabwean policeman casts his vote in a polling station in Harare (AFP/Getty Images) The MDC's senior members were less keen to be friends. "Once a reptile, always a reptile," spat Tendai Biti, its Secretary General and the Zimbabwean Finance Minister when asked about his comments. Mr Tsvangirai wrote in an editorial in the Washington Post, described his rival as "the world's oldest leader and one of its longest-ruling dictators." "He is fixing this election in a more sophisticated fashion than previous Zanu-PF campaigns of beatings, killings and intimidation," he wrote. Mugabe's election-stealing antics have been documented throughout Zimbabwe and beyond. On state television, advertisements calling on Zimbabweans to return President Robert Mugabe to power for another five years were replaced by a music video funded by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission reminding people to take their ID cards to the polling station. "Zimbabwe, let us go and vote," the MC sang. Vote in peace! Zimbawean Chizema Najika, 80, casts her vote in a polling station in a pass cart in Harare (AFP/Getty Images) The day before the vote, the security forces reportedly sent squads of heavily armed riot police into the restive districts of Mbare and Highfield on the outskirts of Harare, witness to violence in 2008 which saw some 200 of Mr Tsvangirai's supporters killed. State radio said thousands of officers had also been sent to the central Midlands province, another potential flashpoint. Emmerson Mnangagwa, Zimbabwbe's Defence Minister, said fears that they would interfere with the vote, or take over if it did not go Mr Mugabe's way, were unfounded. "We don't involve ourselves in such things, we will respect the result whatever it might be," he told The Daily Telegraph on the sidelines of Mr Mugabe's press conference. That's our tradition and its our duty. Veteran Zimbabwe watchers have been pessimistic about the likely outcome. In a report titled "Mugabe's Last Stand," the International Crisis Group said: "A return to protracted political crisis, and possibly extensive violence, is likely."