ZIMBABWE: Zimbabwe's veteran ruler Robert Mugabe launches election campaign as he seeks to extend 33 years of power

Record ID: 214063

  • Title: ZIMBABWE: Zimbabwe's veteran ruler Robert Mugabe launches election campaign as he seeks to extend 33 years of power
  • Date: 5th July 2013
  • Summary: HARARE, ZIMBABWE (JULY 5, 2013) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF BANNER VARIOUS OF PARTY MEMBERS WIDE OF VENUE BANNER MORE OF BANNER
  • Embargoed: 20th July 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Zimbabwe
  • Country: Zimbabwe
  • Topics: Obituaries,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA73U11JQ2LYUTJ0S6GDM57EFHE
  • Story Text: Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe launched a "fight of our life" campaign on Friday (July 5) to extend his three-decade grip on power in a July 31 election already being criticised as poorly planned, underfunded and plagued with irregularities.
    Speaking to tens of thousands of supporters in a sports ground in Harare's Highfield township, the 89-year-old said his ZANU-PF party wanted to stay in office to push through its plans to increase black ownership of the economy.
    Critics accuse Mugabe, who led the former Rhodesia to independence from Britain in 1980, of ruining one of Africa's most promising economies by seizing white-owned farms and giving them to landless blacks with no farming experience.
    "Wage a real, real forceful, vigorous, devastating fight, and this one should be a fight of our lives," Mugabe told the crowd, adding that ZANU-PF had reorganised and strengthened itself after nearly losing power five years ago.
    Although there have been no formal opinion polls, surveys in the past year by Freedom House, a U.S. political think tank, and African research group Afro-Barometer have given Mugabe a narrow lead over his main rival, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
    After listening to Mugabe speak ZANU-PF supporters at the rally expressed confidence that their party would be victorious in the elections.
    "ZANU PF IS winning just like in 1980 after the war, we are winning resoundingly," said Comrade Oripo.
    "This season ZANU PF is winning massively, because MDC showed us that they useless," added Shadreck Masese.
    The campaign launch comes a day after the Constitutional Court rejected appeals, including from Tsvangirai, to delay the vote in order to allow more time for reform of the security forces and state media.
    The legal argument over the election date has raised fears of another disputed poll, although with just three weeks to go, there are few expectations of the kind of violence and bloodshed that marred the 2008 elections, after which Mugabe and Tsvangirai were forced into a power-sharing government.
    Instead, Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says the biggest threat is ZANU-PF "software rigging" - essentially tampering with the voters roll, or making it hard for MDC supporters to register to vote.
    ZANU-PF have denied the allegations.
    Political analyst Ibbo Mandaza said that the impact of any vote rigging would not be enough to determine the outcome of the election.
    "No amount of rigging will frustrate the decision of the people, now I say that given the rumours about rigging and speculation about rigging and all that, I think people are more discerning, more careful, and there will be more scrutiny, so I don't think it's a done deal, lets wait and see what happens," said Mandaza.
    The MDC also alleges that some members of the army have been deployed in the countryside to intimidate potential opponents - a charge the security forces also deny.
    In a 90-minute address on Friday, Mugabe urged ZANU-PF to avoid any violence, saying it was set to win cleanly.
    He also mocked Tsvangirai with references to recent sex scandals and attacked the 15-nation Southern African Community (SADC) for trying to get Harare to delay the poll, saying it amounted to interfering with Zimbabwe's top court.
    Mugabe singled out South African President Jacob Zuma's top Zimbabwe adviser, Lindiwe Zulu, for particular criticism, saying she was behaving as if she were his country's prefect by saying Harare should postpone the vote by at least a month.
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