Zimbabwe courts strike electoral blow to Mugabe

Zimbabwe's Supreme Court has struck down revised electoral laws dealing the government a blow less than two weeks before presidential elections.

In a second setback for the government, a High Court judge has also delayed the implementation of recently passed citizenship rules that had disqualified tens of thousands of voters.

Those disqualified had included long-time labourers from neighboring countries and many among the country's white minority.

Opposition activists had complained that the laws disenfranchised some of their supporters and made it easier for vote rigging in the March 9-10 elections.

President Robert Mugabe, 78, is fighting for his political survival after 22 years in office and has been criticised widely for trying to squash the opposition through legal means and government sanctioned violence.

The Supreme Court cancelled the General Laws Amendment Act that had given state election officers sweeping powers and contained restrictions on vote monitoring, identity requirements for voters, campaigning and voter education, said Adrian de Bourbon, the lawyer representing the opposition Movement for Democratic Change which had appealed the ruling.

Meanwhile, Wednesday's High Court ruling has restored voting rights back to tens of thousands of whites and poor black farm and mine workers whose migrant families originated abroad or in neighboring countries.

The citizenship rules had disqualified longtime residents who also had claims to foreign citizenship from voting.

As part of the ruling, the half million Zimbabweans living abroad can also legally vote by absentee ballot.