Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said one of its members was shot dead and 11 others injured in an attack yesterday by ruling party militants during a hotly-contested by-election.

MDC Secretary General Welshman Ncube said four truckloads of Zanu-PF youth militants raided the home of an opposition candidate in the town of Chitungwiza and shot Francis Chinozvinya in the chest early yesterday.

"He was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital in Harare," Ncube said in a statement.

He said at least 11 other party supporters were seriously injured in the raid on the home of opposition candidate James Makore in Chitungwiza, located some 25 km south of the capital Harare.

President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF has vowed to wrest the seat away from the opposition, which has held it since a victory in the last general elections in 2000.

Arthur Gunzvenzve, an opposition party member in the town, showed a reporter a bullet hole through his trouser leg and bandages over a gunshot wound on his leg.

He said he had identified a senior member of Zanu-PF together with his bodyguard at the scene of the shooting, but did not know who fired the shots that hit him and Chinozvinya.

"I saw (the Zanu-PF member) holding a gun. He was the one commanding the guys. He was the leader," said the injured opposition supporter.

Eight other opposition members were seen with various injuries, including one man with a bandaged lip who said he had been hit by a missile fired by a catapult.

An official from the government-appointed Electoral Supervisory Commission (ESC) said he could not confirm the incident, and police were unavailable for comment.

"This may take some time. There was nothing that could be confirmed except the reports from the people pressing the allegations," Thomas Bvuma of the electoral commission said.

Bvuma added that electoral officials at a nearby polling station said they had not heard any shots.

But an official from an independent election observer group said his group they had pulled one of their observers out of the polling station after he had reported gun-shots.

Tensions have been running high in Chitungwiza during the weeks leading up to the poll.

Yesterday the opposition claimed that ruling party militants had sealed off polling stations "to deny residents their democratic right to freely elect a candidate of their choice".

However, government electoral official Augustine Tsuro was reported as telling the state broadcaster that more than 13 000 out of more than 47 000 registered voters had cast their votes "peacefully" by Sunday afternoon.

Polling stations were due to close at 17:00 GMT.

The outcome of the poll is expected to be a litmus test of the leading opposition party's hold on the urban electorate.

Urban areas have since the 2000 vote been opposition strongholds, but the MDC has lost a number of seats in recent by-elections.

Zanu-PF is seeking to take the seat from the opposition, whose lawmaker Tafadzwa Musekiwa - citing fears of political persecution from pro-government supporters - fled to Britain in late 2002.

The MDC stormed onto the Zimbabwean political scene in 2000 parliamentary elections, clinching 57 predominantly urban constituency seats out of the 120 contested seats.

The ruling party got 62, and it still holds the majority.

Mugabe appoints 30 other non-constituency legislators to parliament, but his party still does not enjoy the two-thirds majority required to make any constitutional changes in parliament. – Sapa-AFP.