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HARARE - Zimbabwe's High Court, ruling in favour of the opposition, has ordered the government to allow people to vote in any constituency in the presidential election in March, an opposition party spokesman said on Saturday.

Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Information Secretary Learnmore Jongwe said the ruling, handed down on Friday, would enable thousands of Zimbabweans he said had been displaced by political violence to cast their vote in the March 9-10 poll.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai poses the biggest challenge to President Robert Mugabe in his 22 years in power in the March ballot.

"We welcome the ruling, which will make it possible for tens of thousands of our supporters who have been forced to flee their constituencies due to violence to vote," said Jongwe, confirming a report on the court's ruling in the privately owned Daily News.

The ruling comes at a time of mounting pressure on the Zimbabwean government by the Commonwealth, the European Union, the United States and human rights groups to take action to ensure the March election will be free and fair.

They have criticised the government's human rights record, its passing of laws to tighten the ruling ZANU-PF party's grip on power, crackdowns on the opposition and its handling of the country's economic crisis.

A controversial media bill due to be debated by parliament next week would, if passed, restrict access for foreign correspondents and make local journalists obtain a licence.

"The High Court judge, Justice Rita Makarau, ordered Tobaiwa Mudede, the registrar-general, to allow people to vote anywhere in the country and not necessarily in their constituencies as decreed by the government," Saturday's Daily News reported.

In her ruling on Friday, the judge ordered Mudede to compile a common voters' roll in time for the March 9-10 vote, the Daily News said.

"Mudede shall make adequate and reasonable administrative arrangements for all voters registered on the common roll who will not be in their constituencies on the polling days, to exercise their vote," Makarau was quoted as saying.

Rights groups say hundreds of Zimbabweans have been displaced from their home constituencies in the political violence that has rocked the country ahead of the election.

The MDC says nearly 100 of its supporters have been killed in political violence since February 2000, when militants led by veterans of the 1970s war against white rule began often violent seizures of white-owned farms with government backing.

Jongwe said the ruling could also make it possible for millions of registered voters living outside Zimbabwe to cast their ballots.

"Our understanding of the ruling is the Registrar General has been ordered to make it possible for every registered voter who is not able to be at their constituency on the day of voting to do so wherever they are," he said.

Mudede and other government officials were not available for comment on Saturday.

The government has said it does not have the capacity to organise polling for voters outside the country except for Zimbabweans who are abroad on diplomatic duty.

Last month the High Court ordered the government to allow for the open-ended registration of voters after an urgent application by the MDC, which argued that the December 2001 deadline would disenfranchise many of its supporters. Nampa-Reuters