"Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has donated 100 computers to 10 schools in Harare, ahead of a parliamentary by-election in a key suburb.

Voters in the low-income suburb of Budiriro go to the polls on Saturday, to fill a parliamentary seat left vacant by the death of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) MP Gilbert Shoko.

Mugabe made the donation after addressing a rally at a school in Budiriro on Thursday.

According to the state- controlled Herald newspaper, Mugabe urged voters not to vote for the MDC calling the party a ""foreign creation"".

The Herald report read: ""Yesterday's donation meant that all secondary schools in the Glen View-Mufakose District - which covers Budiriro constituency - have benefited from the president's computerisation programme.""

The 82-year-old Zimbabwean president began handing out computers to schools ahead of presidential elections in 2005, when some schools in Zimbabwe's rural areas also benefited.

Mugabe wants 51% in country's mines

But there has been muted criticism of the donations. Not all schools have electricity or computer teachers. In some cases, the computers have lain idle or been stolen.

At the rally, Mugabe also confirmed the government's controversial plans to take a 51% share in all mines in the country.

Mugabe said: ""You (mineowners) will get 49%, we will get 51%, that is the policy of government. It is there for the taking, take it or leave it, leave it or take it.""

There are three candidates competing for the Budiriro parliamentary seat - Jeremiah Bvirindi of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union -Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) party, Emmanuel Chisvuure of the Morgan Tsvangirai-led faction of the MDC, and Gabriel Chaibva of the Arthur Mutambara-led MDC faction."