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Mugabe backtracks on 2008 polls
24/03/2007 14:30 - (SA)
Harare - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe urged his supporters to gear up for presidential and parliamentary polls next year, the country's state newspaper reported on Saturday.
The veteran ruler said there was a general view in his ruling Zanu-PF party that presidential elections be held as scheduled in 2008, and not be postponed to 2010 as proposed by some members in order to have concurrent presidential and parliamentary polls.
"I think the view again is that 2008 is preferable," the state-owned Herald newspaper quoted Mugabe as telling a meeting of the governing party women's league in Harare.
"Some of our lawyers are saying this will not give problems. If we are going to have an election, we must start mobilising now, now, now."
Mugabe said in an interview with a Namibian-based weekly a fortnight ago that he intended to stand for another term if his party endorsed him as its candidate for next year's presidential elections.
Committee to decide this week
The 83-year-old, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980, had originally indicated that he would step down when his term expired next year.
Local representatives from his Zanu-PF party passed resolutions in December to extend his rule by two more years to allow the concurrent holding of presidential and parliamentary polls, but the move had still to be approved by the party's powerful central committee and parliament.
The central committee is expected to decide on the elections when it meets in the capital on Wednesday.
Mugabe has vowed that his strongest opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), would never rule Zimbabwe "as long as I am alive", castigating him as a stooge of the West.
Mugabe fell out with many governments after embarking on controversial land reforms that saw the state seizing farms from nearly 4 000 white farmers for redistribution to landless blacks.
The relations were further strained following the country's presidential polls in 2002, which international observers charged were rigged to hand Mugabe victory.
- AFP
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