Utloile Silaigwana, spokesman for the Electoral Supervisory Commission, said the state-appointed body had begun registering observers after vetting by the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Justice respectively.

"We have started accrediting foreign observers and local observers from church organisations, non-governmental organisations and civil service," Silaigwana told Reuters.

Most of the observers invited by President Robert Mugabe's government for the March 31 election will come from organisations perceived as friendly to Mugabe, including the 13-member Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union, the Non-Aligned Movement and the United Nations.

The authorities said last month that Zimbabwe would not invite official teams from either the United States or the European Union, both of which have criticised Mugabe's record on human rights, the rule of law, and seizing white-owned farms to give to landless blacks.

Foreign observers from Africa will pay an accreditation fee of $100 while those from outside the continent -- mostly from Asia and Latin America -- are required to pay $300. The charge for locals is 100,000 Zimbabwe dollars.

Foreign observers will be allowed to roam the country to monitor voting and talk to polling agents and voters.

But Zimbabwe's electoral regulations permit only local observers to monitor ballot-counting after the March 31 polls, which will pit Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF and the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

The EU and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) accuse the ruling party of rigging the last two general elections and using violence and intimidation against opponents.