Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said on Thursday his government had bought 600,000 tonnes of maize to ease food shortages before a June 27 presidential election run-off.

The southern African country, which once had a prosperous agricultural sector, is suffering chronic food shortages in an economic meltdown critics blame on Mugabe's mismanagement.

It has the world's highest inflation rate at more than 165,000 percent.

Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980, is fighting to hold on to power after opposition Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai defeated him in a presidential election on March 29.

Vote buying maize

Official results showed Tsvangirai did not win enough votes to avoid a second round, although the MDC insists he did.

"Yesterday the (central bank) governor was telling me that they bought over 600,000 tonnes of maize from South Africa," Mugabe said at a campaign rally in northeastern Zimbabwe.

The Zimbabwean ruler says Tsvangirai is a Western puppet and accuses British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, U.S. President George W. Bush and other Western leaders of plotting to oust his government for seizing thousands of white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks.

Mugabe, 84, has expressed confidence he will win the run-off despite his performance in the first round.

"It would be embarrassing for us to be defeated by Tsvangirai," he told supporters at the rally in Shamva district.