ZIMBABWE: ZIMBABWEAN OPPOSITION VOWS "NEW BEGINING" AT LAUNCH OF CAMPAIGN FOR MARCH PARLIAMENTARY POLLS

Record ID: 648868

  • Title: ZIMBABWE: ZIMBABWEAN OPPOSITION VOWS "NEW BEGINING" AT LAUNCH OF CAMPAIGN FOR MARCH PARLIAMENTARY POLLS
  • Date: 20th February 2005
  • Summary: (BN08) MASVINGO, ZIMBABWE (FEBRUARY 20, 2005) (REUTERS) 1. SV MOVEMENT FOR DEMOCRATIC CHANGE (MDC) PARTY SUPPORTERS CHANTING SLOGANS 0.10 2. SV MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, MDC PRESIDENT WALKING THROUGH CROWD WITH HIS WIFE SUSAN TSVANGIRAI 0.18 3. LV PULL IN MCU (English) MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, MDC PRESIDENT, SAYING: "The time has come for us to declare that enough is enough, the time has come for us to start afresh as a people, we pledge to make it a possibility." 0.36 4. SLV SUPPORTERS APPLAUD 0.41 5. MCU (English) TSVANGIRAI, SAYING: "We have suffered from continuous economic decay, corruption and mismanagement. We are now down to our knees." 0.55 6. SV SUPPORTERS LISTENING 0.57 7. CU ZIMBABWE AND MDC FLAGS 1.00 8. MCU (English) TSVANGIRAI, SAYING: "We are tried of a regime that blames imaginary foreign enemies for it's own mistakes." 1.07 9. SV SUPPORTERS LISTENING/SUPPORTERS HOLDING UP NEWSPAPER AND CHEERING (2 SHOTS) 1.18 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 7th March 2005 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: MASVINGO, ZIMBABWE
  • Country: Zimbabwe
  • Reuters ID: LVAAA6EBKISUQTJSESDQHE5I3Q3F
  • Story Text: Zimbabwean Opposition vows "new beginning" at launch
    of campaign for March parliamentary polls.




    Opposition leaders vowed a "new beginning" for
    Zimbabwe on Sunday (February 20, 2005), launching a campaign for
    March parliamentary polls analysts say are already
    loaded in favour of President Robert Mugabe.

    At a rally near the ancient Great Zimbabwe monument
    from which the country derives its name, Movement for
    Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai urged
    voters to back him as the only way out of Zimbabwe's
    political and economic crisis.

    "The time has come for us to declare that enough is
    enough, the time has come for us to start afresh as a
    people, we pledge to make it a possibility," Tsvangirai
    told a cheering crowd of 5,000 supporters gathered at an
    open-air stadium.

    "We have suffered from continuous economic decay,
    corruption and mismanagement. We are now down to our
    knees,"
    Political analysts say the March 31 elections are
    almost certain to return Mugabe's ZANU-PF to power,
    prolonging a crisis that has ruined the once prosperous
    southern African country.

    Mugabe, who turns 81 on Monday and has been Zimbabwe's
    only leader since independence from Britain in 1980, has
    promised to "bury" the opposition, which he scoffingly
    refers to as pawns of racist Western powers.

    The veteran leader has been accused by both the MDC and
    several Western countries of increased political repression
    and rigging both parliamentary elections in 2000 and the
    2002 presidential vote which handed him a new five-year
    term.

    Mugabe denies the charges and says he is being targeted
    by Western countries led by Britain who oppose his policy
    of seizing white-owned farms to give to landless blacks.


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