'We mind the Tony Blairs'
2005-02-08 10:01
Special Report
Zimbabwe's constitutional affairs minister has cast doubt on President Robert Mugabe's bid to hold elections this year.
A dusty road leads to the village of Wedza, where veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war eke out a meagre living on their farm cooperative, which after a promising start now brings only despair.
Harare - Gearing up for elections next month, President Robert Mugabe has warned against what he claims are attempts by Britain to gain a foothold in Zimbabwe through the opposition, state media reported on Tuesday.
Mugabe, addressing thousands of people at a secondary school where he donated computers, also said that his ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) was working to win back the hearts of Zimbabweans after the setbacks of the 2000 elections.
"Let us straighten where we went wrong. We know the British want to turn us into a colony, slaves of whites in our own country," the government-run daily, The Herald, quoted him as saying on Tuesday.
Mugabe has repeatedly accused Britain of meddling in Zimbabwe's affairs and of trying to topple him by supporting the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.
'What do they want here?'
Mugabe - in power since independence from Britain in 1980 - expounded on the same theme again at the school, accusing Blair of trying to interfering in the March 31 elections.
"We don't mind if those people are Zimbabweans but we definitely mind if they are foreigners, the Tony Blairs of this world.
"What do they want here? Do they want to take away our wives," he said to "thunderous applause," according to The Herald.
Mugabe also referred to the last elections five years ago, when the opposition MDC, riding a wave of discontent over plumetting living standards, managed to win nearly half of the 120 contested seats.
"In 2000 the vote was by and large 'no'," for the ruling Zanu-PF, he said.
"But if a man is rejected by a woman (and) if he is still in love with her as we believe we are still in love with you, he will come back again. Is she going to say no again?" he said.
Mugabe is due to launch the ruling party's electoral campaign on Friday.
He added: "After the launch of our election campaign ... we will be coming to talk to you in a serious way and we will establish if our destiny is together."
The MDC has posed the stiffest challenge to Mugabe's stranglehold on power since it was founded in 1999 but it has fared poorly in recent bye-elections.
Zimbabwe's last two polls in 2000 and 2002 were widely criticised as being marred by violence, intimidation and fraud and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai claimed that victory had been snatched from him in the last presidential polls.
The MDC last week said it was reluctantly contesting the polls while stressing that the conditions for a free and fair poll were almost nil.
Zimbabwe now says it has revamped its electoral machinery - instituting an independent poll commission, introducing a single day of voting and providing for counting at polling stations - to conform to southern African regional standards on free polling.
- AFP