Zimbabwe: Harare-born Chenjerai Kanyandura believes Zimbabwe's general election, which takes place today, will be too close to call, but the 35-year-old is about the only one here who does.
The electrical engineer, who lives in Harare's Mufakose suburb, said he does not want to reveal his voting preference before he goes to the polls for fear of reprisals. However, he thinks both parties have a 50/50 chance of winning the nation's 2005 parliamentary election.
"I think Zanu-PF will make inroads in the cities where they are historically unpopular. But I also believe the MDC [ the opposition Movement for Democratic Change party] will do better in the country this time around, as it has been given greater access to it," he said.
The vast majority of ordinary Zimbabweans believe their president, Robert Mugabe, and his ruling Zanu-PF party will rig today's election to ensure power for a further five years, even though they believe the MDC may well take the popular vote.
Although most people genuinely hope for regime change, the sense of inevitability and despair gripping the electorate is palpable. And it is due to the widespread violence, intimidation and vote rigging that occurred during the parliamentary election of 2000 and the presidential election of 2002.
A spokesperson for the Justice for Agriculture group, John Worsley-Warswick, is one of those currently living on a diet of hope and despair in equal measures.
"I know the 600,000 black farm workers that I represent will vote MDC on polling day and I really hope they can win. But you've got to understand, that number is not going to do much against what our government has done in terms of rigging the election - there is nothing like a level playing field at the moment.
"The electoral roll has only been released to the public in the last few days, and it should have been made available weeks ago; then you have the intimidation in the rural areas with threats that if you don't vote for Zanu-PF, you won't get fed when the food shortages really kick in," he said.
The public's sense of inevitability is not helped by the fact that supporters of President Mugabe's Zanu-PF, which stands for the Zimbabwean African National Union Patriotic Front, publicly scoff at the very thought of a closely fought election.
They are adamant that the only outcome the world will witness following today's poll is victory for the incumbent. Everywhere their party political band wagon has gone in recent times the mantra is: "The MDC will never win."
Meanwhile, members of the Movement for Democratic Change are quietly confident of going one better than they did in 2002, when despite the widespread rigging and intimidation by Zanu-PF, they only narrowly lost the election.
Is their renewed confidence well placed after what has befallen them in the last two elections? Historically, city dwellers vote MDC and rural communities make up the backbone of Zanu-PF's support base. But with the food shortages affecting every rural community, their influence is without doubt on the wane.
Lovemore Taruvinga from Kambuzuma said he has been a lifelong supporter of the MDC, and in his area, on the outskirts of Harare, everyone is going to vote for the MDC.
"There are no Zanu-PF supporters in my area, sure. We will win the election this time round. We were told we would get land and jobs during the last election but nothing happened. So, you must wait and see - we will win for sure," he said confidently.
If you were to look at it from this perspective alone, you could not be faulted for backing the opposition party to wrestle power away from Mugabe.
Those who hope a regime change can occur see the introduction of a set of new electoral guidelines - which President Mugabe reluctantly signed up to last August as a member of the Southern Africa Development Community - as the best way of achieving this. They pray the guidelines will ensure a free and fair election.
However, most people cannot bring themselves to believe this can happen. The crux of the rigging allegations that have been levelled at the government is the number of living people who are actually on the electoral roll.
According to the register general, the figure comes in at about 5.7 million people, but the MDC estimates that the number is more in the region of 3.3 million because of Aids deaths, which it says introduces the spectre of "ghost voters" having their say.
The MDC was given hard copies of the electoral roll only days ago but was denied access to the document in CD-rom format.
Sources said this was done because computer programs could reveal anomalies on the list, such as the duplication of voter names - already media reports claim that some names turn up repeatedly.
Then there is the widely held belief that the military - which will be manning the polling stations for all of today - is 100 per cent loyal to the government and will ensure that no matter what happens Zanu-PF will stay in power.
Worsley-Warswick is one of the Zimbabweans who hold this view: "He [ President Mugabe] has bought off all the high-level police and army with land that he stole from the farmers." What is not clear, however, is where the lower-ranking officers and soldiers stand.
A former military intelligence officer and an adviser to Zanu- PF during its heyday in the late 1980s - who requested anonymity - said it was not clear which side the army supported.
"From talking with my former colleagues, I know that they want a free and fair election to occur, so they won't allow cheating by either side. The army and police will support whoever wins the election. This is what I am told and I believe this to be true," he said.
Of the 150 seats in Zimbabwe's parliament, 30 are appointed at the pleasure of President Mugabe, leaving 120 to be contested. If the MDC manages to win 61 of those seats today, there could well be a constitutional crisis.
One can only wonder what will happen then.