Mugabe critics predict fraud in Zimbabwe elections
President Robert Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe with an iron fist for nearly three decades, faces his toughest challenge yet in this weekend's general elections. Voters go to the polls Saturday in simultaneous presidential, parliamentary, senate and council elections. Mugabe, 84, is seeking a sixth consecutive term as president of the southern African nation. Mugabe faces three opposition candidates, two of whom have a good chance of winning. Mugabe's regime may be on shaky ground amid allegations of corruption and a failing economy. Zimbabweans are the poorest they have ever been since the nation became a democracy. Unemployment is estimated at around 80 percent, inflation is more than 100,000 percent, and hundreds of thousands are fleeing the country to earn more elsewhere than they would back home. Mugabe has been in office since the country, then called Rhodesia, gained independence from Britain in 1980. He was once respected as a liberation hero, but observers now criticize him for repressive tactics and corruption, and blame him for the country's dire economic state. The Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC, is the main opposition to Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party. But a split in 2006 severely weakened the MDC, and the party's two factions back different candidates. One faction supports MDC founder Morgan Tsvangirai, who led hotly contested challenges against Mugabe in 2000, 2002 and 2005. This week, Tsvangirai had to cancel campaign rallies after the Zimbabwean government impounded a helicopter that was to carry him around the country, according to the owner of the copter charter company. The other MDC faction backs Simba Makoni, Mugabe's former finance minister, who was expelled from the Zanu-PF after announcing his bid to unseat the president. In what critics labeled a vote-buying exercise, Mugabe recently increased the salaries of the police, army and teachers and also handed out machinery to black farmers. Zimbabwean officials deny the moves had anything to do with the election. someone of fierce intellect who presided over an African success story. But nearly three decades later, Mugabe has consolidated his rule over all aspects of Zimbabwean life. Soon after Mugabe came to power, his government launched a campaign to crush opposition in an area called Matabeleland. The massacre and beatings of thousands of civilians was little reported at the time and is still barely condemned. the World Bank and IMF [International Monetary Fund] -- which cannot extend any facility to Zimbabwe unless America and Britain say so," Mugabe has said. In a CNN interview in 2000, Mugabe offered insight into his thinking on elections and power. "When you go to elections it is not necessarily that of including every party in your Cabinet," he said. "You go into elections competing with each and every other group in order to win. Win and govern." |
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