Zimbabwe's opposition Sunday took court action to extend the country's election into a third day because of long delays, but President Robert Mugabe's government rejected the idea.
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, who Saturday left the door open to extending the election, told state radio after observing voting queues in Harare from a plane that there were no legal grounds for a third day.
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo had earlier taken a similar line.
The opposition MDC of Morgan Tsvangirai, saying the delays are a tactic by Mugabe to disenfranchise its voters in Harare, petitioned the high court for an extension. The court was due to give its decision later.
Earlier, Zimbabwe's main election organizer said the backlog of frustrated voters would be cleared by extending Sunday voting hours after the official close at 7 p.m. (1700 GMT).
"This is what happened yesterday and this is exactly what we will be doing tonight. If there are queues we shall make sure those queues are dealt with and we shall not close at seven o'clock," Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede said on ZTV state television.
Authorities did the same Saturday night after the first day of voting in the capital -- an opposition stronghold -- was marred in many areas by huge delays for tens of thousands of voters.
Announcing the opposition legal case, MDC spokesman Percy Makombe said: "We are trying to compel the registrar-general to extend the polling days because it will be impossible to finish today."
International election observers had warned before the vote that it would be impossible to process in two days the 5,000 to 7,000 voters registered at many urban polling stations.
The average in rural areas was far lower and down to 700 per station in many villages, observers said.
State radio, quoting official figures, said only 127,000 people in the Harare area voted on the first day of the election out of 800,000 registered voters, almost all of them opposition supporters.
"The majority of our voters are deliberately being blocked out of this election," MDC information secretary Learnmore Jongwe said.