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Mugabe woos voters with tractors
08/03/2008 22:48 - (SA)
Harare - Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe handed
out tractors and fuel on Saturday as he courted votes ahead of
elections this month, and a leading opponent urged the veteran
president to end decades of misrule and retire.
Mugabe handed out the farm equipment to blacks given land
seized from whites, a reform his critics say has helped plunge
Zimbabwe into economic crisis, and predicted an overwhelming
victory that would confound Britain and other critics.
The 84-year-old Mugabe is seeking to extend his 28-year hold
on power in presidential, parliamentary and local council polls
set for March 29, and has blamed the West for Zimbabwe's
economic crisis.
At a ceremony in the capital Harare, Mugabe provided farm
equipment worth millions of dollars to thousands of new black
farmers, machinery for women and youths to establish small
businesses and buses to try to ease public transport problems.
He also gave traditional chiefs at the same ceremony
thousands of litres of fuel, also in short supply.
"When the government embarked on the land reform programme,
the dark forces of imperialism sought to strangle our agro-based
economy through the spiteful closure of financial loans and
grants to us," he told thousands at the equipment distribution.
"This hate programme by Britain and her fellow racists
imposed unjustified sanctions on Zimbabwe in futile attempts to
frighten us off our land. But we shall never retreat, never,
never," he said in what has become a ritual attack on Zimbabwe's
former colonial master.
Pension time
Mugabe faces a tough challenge from rebel former finance
minister, Simba Makoni, and long time opposition rival Morgan
Tsvangirai, who narrowly lost the disputed 2002 election to
Mugabe.
"It's time Mugabe went for a retirement package...Mugabe
should be ashamed to be seeking re-election after almost 30
years of misrule," Tsvangirai told a cheering crowd in a packed
stadium in the southern city of Bulawayo.
Tsvangirai said his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
would speed up economic development in the region and compensate
victims of a military crackdown on a five-year Matabeleland
insurgency in the 1980s that left thousands dead.
The region has long been an opposition stronghold.
"We're going to set up a Matabeleland Reparations Fund to
respond to those who were unfortunate to lose their dear ones,
to make sure they are able to restore their lives again and be
part of this society," Tsvangirai said.
The opposition leader, who says his government would make
constitutional reforms a top priority, also promised greater
autonomy for the country's provinces, but said this would not
take the form of a federal administration.
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