Campaign posters of President Robert Mugabe in Harare

Zimbabwe's High Court is to rule Monday on a request to order the immediate release of delayed presidential election results.

The announcement by a High Court judge in the capital, Harare, was made after a Sunday hearing prompted by a petition from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

No results have been released from the March 29 presidential vote, but President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party wants the electoral commission to delay the outcome pending a complete recount.

Robert Mugabe (March 2008)

The delay has raised concerns that the government is trying to rig the vote. The opposition says it is ridiculous to ask for a recount when no results have been released.

Meanwhile, farmers in Zimbabwe's Masvingo province say hardline ZANU-PF supporters have invaded some of the country's few remaining white-owned farms.

Mr. Mugabe's supporters seized hundreds of white-owned farms earlier this decade, in what the government called an effort to address colonial-era imbalances in land ownership.

Critics say the seizures triggered a fall in food production and the beginning of Zimbabwe's economic crisis.

President Mugabe, who is 84, has ruled Zimbabwe since it gained independence from Britain in 1980.

Supporters hail him as a hero of the independence movement, but critics accuse him of human-rights abuses and say his policies have ruined Zimbabwe's economy.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.