Dili – East Timor's ruling party Sunday accused foreign peacekeeping troops of a deliberate campaign to upset its chances of winning this week's presidential election.

The Fretilin party claimed several thousand Australian-led troops were intimidating its supporters and trying to disrupt its rallies during canvassing ahead of Wednesday's poll.

"Timor Leste is a sovereign country, no longer under foreign military occupation," party executive Jose Teixeira said, using the tiny country's official name.

"The ISF (International Stabilisation Force) should not be frightening and intimidating an entirely peaceful election gathering."

Foreign troops and police were deployed to East Timor after ethnic violence last year killed 37 people and forced 150,0000 others to flee their homes.

The peacekeepers are guarding against further unrest ahead of Wednesday's runoff vote in the election, the nation's first since it gained independence in 2002 after 24 years of Indonesian occupation.

Fretilin candidate Francisco Guterres and rival Jose Ramos-Horta are contesting the runoff after they won the bulk of the vote in the April 9 election, but not a majority.

Guterres urged his supporters on Sunday to remain calm if he lost the election, amid fears of fresh outbreaks of violence.

"When the results of the vote come out, the people should accept the vote," Guterres told reporters shortly before Fretilin claimed troop intimidation. "If it is the people who chose, then one has to accept the victory and the other his fate," he said.

Guterres held a press conference on the last day of official campaigning as Ramos-Horta staged a rally in a football field in the capital that drew more than a thousand supporters. Ramos-Horta, a Nobel laureate, told reporters afterwards that he hoped to win more than 80 percent of the vote, saying such a commanding victory "can help stabilise the country."

Attending the rally was current president and former guerrilla leader Xanana Gusmao, who is not seeking reelection to the post, a largely ceremonial role.

Fretilin suggested Sunday that the alleged intimidation by the troops was connected to the Australian government's apparent support for Ramos-Horta.

"We are not convinced that there is no connection between the troops' behaviour and the Australian government's apparent support for Jose Ramos-Horta," said Teixeira, who is also the minister for mining and petroleum.

Teixeira, reading from the statement, said two Fretilin rallies had been disrupted, including one in the southwest city of Ainaro on May 3, when a helicopter landed very close and armed soldiers in full combat gear moved through the crowd. He said the party had sent a protest letter to the head of the troops, Australia's Brigadier Mal Rerden.

There was no immediate comment from Rerden, but he has said in the past that troops were in East Timor at the invitation of the government with the sole purpose of maintaining security after the bloodshed in May last year.