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MDC urges reconciliation
30/03/2005 21:13 - (SA)
Biriwiri - Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai urged political reconciliation on Wednesday, on the eve of landmark elections that he predicted his party would easily win.
"We are going to win and win by a wide margin," said Tsvangirai at a rally on the final day of campaigning, in the village of Biriwiri near the border with Mozambique.
"We hope the outcome of the election will provide an opportunity for national reconciliation and hopefully Zanu-PF will not be arrogant," said the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
The party has been posing the strongest challenge yet to President Robert Mugabe's 25 years in power.
Addressing a separate rally in Harare earlier, Mugabe rejected the prospect of a unity government that would bring in the opposition.
He confidently asserted that his rivals would have to accept defeat to his ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF).
'Respect the results'
"Once we have fought in an election, a party has lost and we have won," Mugabe said. "We expect that party to respect the results."
Zimbabweans go to the polls on Thursday to elect a new parliament after weeks of campaigning that have been surprisingly free of the bloodshed that marred the 2000 and 2002 elections when scores were killed and beaten in political violence.
Mugabe is hoping to clinch a massive win in the vote, but the opposition says it could score an electoral upset.
"Zanu-PF has lost five years, where it could have negotiated with the MDC, but it was hoping the MDC would disappear," said Tsvangirai, 53, a former union leader who launched the party six years ago.
Addressing the crowd on the grounds of Biriwiri High School, Tsvangirai called on the people of the rural farming region to turn out and vote to "liberate" themselves from 25 years of Zanu-PF power.
MDC 'will repair what Mugabe destroyed'
"Mugabe has destroyed the farms, the factories and the mines and the MDC is going to repair what Mugabe and Zanu-PF have destroyed and create jobs for our children," said Tsvangirai.
He travelled to the Chimanimani constituency to show support for Heather Bennett, the wife of jailed white opposition parliamentarian Roy Bennett, who lost his farm during the 2000 land invasions.
Mugabe's land-reform programme in which thousands of white-owned farms were seized and distributed to landless blacks, and several droughts have been blamed for the collapse in agriculture in Zimbabwe, once the breadbasked of the region.
Food shortages and rising unemployment have sent living standards reeling, along with the Aids pandemic affecting one in four adults.
- AFP
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