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Promises don't matter: Mugabe
19/03/2005 14:02 - (SA)
Norton - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe on Friday urged his supporters to vote for his party's candidates in crunch upcoming parliamentary elections regardless of any of its shortcomings.
"You can't afford not to vote Zanu-PF. It doesn't matter that the party may have failed to fulfil certain promises, such as employment," Mugabe told thousands of his supporters in this small town close to his home village, 40km west of the capital.
"We know that at times life gets tough, but you can't say because things are difficult you vote for the MDC, forgetting that you were once oppressed by whites," said Mugabe.
The MDC is the only opposition party in the southern African country, posing the most serious challenge to Mugabe's rule since independence from Britain in 1980.
"You can't disown your parents because they do not have enough to provide for you," Mugabe told his supporters.
"Problems are there, yes, we have not had good rains and there will be hunger, but we are preparing for that," said Mugabe, whose government admitted this week that the southern African country is importing food to avert severe hunger due to poor rains.
Mugabe warned that he would kick out the few white farmers still operating in Zimbabwe if they ever "despised" his government.
"We are not saying whites should not have any farms, but we are saying the whites should not despise our government," he told cheering supporters at a stadium where he also handed out 60 state-of-the-art computers to schools in the town. This has become characteristic of all his campaign rallies.
Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF), represented by Mugabe's nephew Patrick Zhuwao, will try to wrestle the seat of Norton from an opposition MDC lawmaker elected in 2000 polls.
Another nephew of Mugabe, Leo Mugabe, is also running for election in a separate constituency in the same Mashonaland West province.
The elections due in less than two weeks are being watched to see if Mugabe will honour his promise to comply with regional electoral standards set last year.
The polls are also expected to consolidate his hold on power.
Zimbabwe's last two polls in 2000 and 2002 were widely criticised as being tainted by violence, fraud and intimidation.
- AFP
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Zimbabwe Special Report
