CHIWESHE, Zimbabwe: President Robert Mugabe kick-started his election campaign yesterday exuding confidence that Zimbabweans will vote to extend his 33-year rule when they go to the ballot box in three weeks’ time.
“On the 31st of this month the whole country will vote ZANU-PF back into government,” 89-year-old Mugabe said in an hour-long speech to some 6,000 supporters in Chiweshe, 120km north of the capital Harare.
Unleashing his trademark populist bravado, Mugabe doubled down on nationalist rhetoric and hit out at his opponents from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, with whom he has been forced to share power for the last four years.
The elections will end that forced and often abusive marriage, but there are mounting fears Mugabe’s supporters will not allow the vote to be free and fair or that the voter roll will be rigged.
Previous elections have been marred by bloodshed, to the extent that Mugabe’s main rival in 2008, the MDC’s Morgan Tsvangirai, felt forced to withdraw despite winning the first round of polling.
Tsvangirai later became prime minister as part of the uneasy power-sharing deal.
“We are a party that has meaning to the people, a party that is naturally a people’s party, that addresses the needs that are felt by the people,” Mugabe said.
Thousands of supporters clad in green and yellow T-shirts emblazoned with Mugabe’s portrait sang and danced as the veteran leader arrived. AFP
