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Zim blitz 'vote-rigging tactic'
16/07/2007 07:32 - (SA)
Chitungwiza - President Robert Mugabe's price crackdown is a tactic to divert attention from vote-rigging for next year's elections, says Zimbabwe's main opposition leader.
Morgan Tsvangirai said: "The real issue is diversion, to divert the people of Zimbabwe from the problems they are facing, so that they spend most of their time chasing each other in shops at a time voter registration is taking place."
Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), had threatened to boycott next year's parliamentary and presidential elections unless their independence could be guaranteed.
Opposition groups had long voiced fears that 83-year-old Mugabe would try to ensure a sixth term in office by rigging the electoral roll in favour of his ruling Zanu-PF party.
Manufactures ordered to slash prices
Mugabe, accused by Western nations of rigging his re-election in 2002, is facing his biggest test at the ballot box next year since coming to power as a result of an economic meltdown that had seen inflation spiral to well beyond 5 000%.
His government's decision to order shops and manufactures to slash their prices late last month was widely seen by analysts as a bid to win over voters who had been unable to afford the rapidly rising price of goods.
Although the price cuts had enabled households to afford goods that had become luxuries, many analysts had warned that the move would ultimately backfire as stores ran dry and goods instead ended up on the more expensive black market.
Mugabe had accused businesses of deliberately pushing up prices in order to topple his regime, but Tsvangirai said the president was to blame.
He asked: "How did the prices get there in the first place?"
Tsvangirai was addressing a crowd of about 5 000 supporters at one of the first opposition rallies authorised by authorities after the lifting of a blanket ban on demonstrations on June 29.
The opposition leader and dozens of his supporters were assaulted by security forces after they tried to attend a prayer rally earlier this year, but there was no sign of trouble at Sunday's gathering, which was monitored by a small number of police officers.
- AFP
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Zimbabwe Special Report
