Zim denies longer Mugabe term
2006-09-28 12:02
Special Report
A classical music presenter for the BBC has been arrested and is in custody in Zimbabwe.
Harare - Zimbabwe's ruling party has denied planning to postpone the country's 2008 presidential election to 2010, according to reports on Thursday.
Zim Online quoted Zanu-PF's secretary for administration, Didymus Mutasa, as saying: "There is nothing like that."
Party spokesperson Nathan Shamuyarira on Sunday said Zanu-PF was considering pushing back the presidential poll by two years to held simultaneously with parliamentary polls in 2010.
Such move would give President Robert Mugabe - now in his 26th year in power - an extra two years at the helm.
Mutasa, the de facto party secretary-general, said the first he learnt of the plan was when he read about it in the newspapers.
'Not true'
"As secretary for administration, I am in the picture of what is happening in the party but not this thing that we want to hold joint presidential and parliamentary elections (in 2010)," said Mutasa.
"Ask (justice minister Patrick) Chinamasa, he is the one who usually handles these legal things."
Chinamasa also rejected the notion of a postponed presidential poll.
"As far as I am concerned that is not true," he said.
Shamuyarira could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
The 82-year-old Mugabe earlier indicated he would step down at the end of his current term in 2008.
- SAPA