Mugabe denies violent pre-poll campaign

BINDURA, Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe yesterday denied his ZANU-PF party had launched a violent campaign to intimidate rivals in elections expected in July, which he hopes will extend his 33 years in power.
Addressing a rally to mark his 89th birthday last week, Africa’s oldest leader denied accusations by the rival Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai that ZANU-PF was playing dirty ahead of the presidential and parliamentary polls.
“We are going to win these elections, and we are going to win them peacefully,” Mugabe told the rally in Bindura, 85 km (53 miles) north of the capital Harare.
“Our rivals are running scared, ridiculously blaming us for every incident of violence in the country, pinning every death on us to get sympathy from abroad and especially from their Western supporters,” he added.
Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since its independence from Britain in 1980, has become a pariah in the West, blamed for running a once-prosperous country into the ground, human rights abuses, and violent, rigged elections.
Political analysts say ZANU-PF faces a stern challenge from the MDC in the next polls as many Zimbabweans blame Mugabe for a decade-long economic crisis which peaked in 2008 with inflation over 500 percent, food shortages and unemployment over 80 percent.
Mugabe was forced to share power with Tsvangirai’s MDC four years ago after violent and disputed elections in 2008.