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HARARE, Monday (AFP)

Shots were fired at officials of Zimbabwe's leading opposition party late Sunday, shortly after the end of two days of voting in two key local elections considered a preview of upcoming presidential polls, a party official said.

Welshman Ncube, secretary general of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), told AFP by telephone from Bulawayo that at around 9:30 pm (1930 GMT) he and a group of other officials in the party were shot at by a group of suspected war veterans who support President Robert Mugabe.

The incident also came only hours after Mugabe said that he agreed in principle to a Commonwealth-brokered deal to curb the violence in the southern African nation.

Voter turnout in both the Bulawayo mayoral election and the Makoni-West parliamentary by-election had been low, state television said.

The two elections are seen by many as a popularity test for Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party.

Meanwhile a fresh farm invasion took place briefly on Sunday in northern Zimbabwe.

A farming official on the invaded farm in Mashonaland Central province, who asked not to be named, said the invasion by around 200 land occupiers was quickly defused by police.

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