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Zim 'old man' should retire
22/02/2008 14:24 - (SA)
Harare - President Robert Mugabe should retire before he faces defeat in elections next month, an aide to a rival whom the Zimbabwean leader branded a "prostitute" says.
Mugabe hurled the insult at former finance minister Simba Makoni on Thursday in a television interview and vowed to humiliate the opposition in the March 29 general elections.
Makoni, expelled from Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF last week, had emerged as the most serious political challenger to Mugabe in two decades, at a time when the veteran leader was struggling to convince Zimbabweans that he could ease their economic hardships.
Ibbo Mandaza, a senior member of Makoni's campaign team, dismissed Mugabe's remarks as the rumblings of someone in power for far too long.
Mugabe to attend elaborate celebration
Mandaza said: "Are you surprised by that? What we hope for is that the old man will have a nice retirement with his family because we are going to win this election."
"We are not about recrimination. We are looking at the post-election period, where we will give him the kind of respect and security that a founding father of this nation deserves."
Mugabe would attend an elaborate celebration of his 84th birthday and launch his election campaign in the southern border town of Beitbridge on Saturday.
The Western world saw Mugabe as a ruthless dictator, but regional African leaders looked up to him as a liberation hero who still took on the United States and former coloniser Britain.
Unlike Mugabe, Makoni had said he wanted to restore ties with Western donors to rescue the economy, and analysts said he might have a much better chance at the elections than the divided main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Fair election process 'unlikely'
Makoni, Mugabe and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai would stand in the March 29 presidential, parliamentary and council polls.
Mugabe had tried to deflect attention from Zimbabwe's economic meltdown by accusing the MDC of working with Western foes to oust him and destabilise the country, analysts said.
Opponents hoped that the world's highest inflation rate, more than 100 000%, and shortages of basic goods would weaken Mugabe, but security crackdowns had tightened his grip on power.
In South Africa, the two MDC factions repeated on Thursday that they did not expect a fair election process.
"In these circumstances we hold the firm view that the 2008 elections, which are being held under the same conditions as previous disputed elections, cannot by any stretch of the imagination yield a legitimate outcome," Tendai Biti and Welshman Ncube, senior officials from the two MDC factions, said in a statement in Johannesburg.
"We spent hours on our computers, hours researching, hours quarrelling, hours arguing ... and because we put so much into it, obviously as human beings we feel betrayed, we feel let down by the process."
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