AFP - Zambia's opposition leader Michael Sata accused rival President Rupiah Banda of plotting to rig next week's vote as the two candidates wrapped up campaigning in an election that analysts say is too close to call.

Tuesday's presidential, parliamentary and local elections will decide Zambia's leaders for the next five years, with Banda campaigning on a pro-business, pro-growth platform and Sata arguing the incumbent has given too much away to foreign investors and allowed corruption to fester.

Supporters brandishing Banda posters and decked out in the blue-and-white colours of the ruling Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD) lined the roads Saturday to greet Banda's convoy, as it took him to Mandevu, a poor neighbourhood on the outskirts of the capital Lusaka.

Earlier in the day, Sata held his last rally in the northern province of Luapula, unleashing his typically fiery rhetoric to urge a crowd of some 6,000 people to boot out Banda and the MMD, in power for the past 20 years.

Sata lost to Banda by just two percentage points when the rivals last went head-to-head in a 2008 special election to finish the remainder of late president Levy Mwanawasa's term after he died of a stroke.

Sata claims the MMD stole the race, and his supporters rioted for days after.

The Patriotic Front (PF) leader, who is running in his third consecutive presidential contest, on Saturday accused Banda of plotting to rig Tuesday's vote.

"MMD is mad. They will come with pre-marked ballot papers that they will give our polling agents in order to rig elections," said Sata, whose biting attacks have earned him the nickname "King Cobra".

"Banda came into government through rigging elections. Banda and (MMD parliamentary chief whip Vernon) Mwaanga think that we people are stupid. Their time to go has come."

A group of his supporters wielded a large canoe in a nod to Sata's campaign symbol: a speed boat tugged on a trailer in which he rides to rallies, urging Zambians to jump on board to be saved from poverty and under-development.

Banda's supporters for their part played up their candidate's management of the economy, which grew 7.6 percent last year and 6.4 percent the year before, and his spending on big infrastructure projects.

Zambia has been enjoying one of the highest growth rates in Africa, pushed by the rising price of copper, the country's chief export.

"Banda has delivered beyond my expectation. We now have better roads and water in Mandevu," said 55-year-old Mailesi Daka, one of thousands of supporters in the neighbourhood for Banda's last campaign stop.

The president was expected to address the rally later Saturday afternoon, with two large screens set up to broadcast his speech to the crowd.