HARARE -- According to yesterday's midday television news in Zimbabwe, there is only one candidate in this weekend's presidential poll, and it is Comrade Robert Mugabe.

The 1 p.m. broadcast kicked off with an enthusiastic report that Mr. Mugabe, at his "biggest rallies so far," was calling for more land reform. Next up was good news for seven families near Masvingo in the south, to whom Mr. Mugabe's government had "given" a commercial farm. The village leader was profusely thankful.

This was followed by a report of the government's decision to accelerate corn delivery to starving Manicaland peasants, and an item about generous government donations to both the disabled and disadvantaged women traders.

An appeal by a pretty girl in the eastern town of Mutare -- "I say to all students, be sure to support the [ruling ZANU-PF] party because it is right behind us" -- was followed by news that the government is spending the equivalent of $28,000 for empowering indigenous people, a news bite about Congo peace talks and finally one about Nigeria following Zimbabwe's lead in refusing to accept international loans.

With just two days left before voting begins, pro-Mugabe propaganda has reached a fever pitch on the state-controlled airwaves, led by the only television station, ZBC, which the opposition has dubbed the "ZANU-PF Broadcasting Corporation."

But while the state broadcaster is full of good news about the President's campaign for re-election, there is no mention of the electoral violence across the country.

Yesterday's broadcast made no mention of the report that the official Electoral Supervisory Commission does not know how many ballot papers have been printed, the exact location of 4,548 polling stations, when voter lists would be made public or why only a fraction of 12,500 local independent observers had been accredited. About 22,000 government employees will oversee the poll.

The broadcaster has also run a series of special features, called Reflections, in which the ruling party airs old speeches by war heroes about colonialism, white racism and Zimbabwean nationalism. Between programs are shots of happy people dancing amid lush agricultural fields that look nothing like those along the roads of a drought-stricken country.

State-run television and radio stations run no stories about ZANU-PF violence, although there are regular reports in government-controlled newspapers about opposition-sparked violence.

In the southwestern city of Bulawayo last week, the state-owned Chronicle newspaper ran a headline reading "MDC terror," referring to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. The story was about an opposition supporter driving his car into ZANU-PF supporters, injuring 16 of them.

In its report yesterday, the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe said there was a lack of coverage of political violence on both ZBC and state radio, which Mr. Mugabe's main base of support -- the largely uneducated rural poor -- relies on for news.

The report said the state broadcaster "continued to denigrate the MDC while according ZANU-PF positive coverage and more airtime." For instance, it said that of 13 campaign reports by state-run Radio Zimbabwe on one day this week, 10 were campaign pieces for ZANU-PF, while only one favoured an opposition party and two criticized the MDC -- "as has become the norm on ZBC."

The country's many private newspapers and Shortwave Radio Africa tend to favour the MDC, as do some of the foreign satellite television networks to which only affluent Zimbabweans have access.

Yesterday, the Mass Public Opinion Institution published findings of its national voter survey in the Daily News and other papers. Aside from placing MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai ahead of Mr. Mugabe in the public eye, it found that the public has only minimal interest in land reform, Mr. Mugabe's main issue. A minority felt that being a "war veteran" like Mr. Mugabe is an important factor in choosing a president.