Post date: Jul 30, 2013 5:58:36 PM
On the eve of a hotly contested election in Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabesays he's buried the hatchet with main political rival Morgan Tsvangirai, setting aside weeks of campaign trail vitriol and acrimony.
HARARE, ZIMBABWE (JULY 30, 2013) (REUTERS) - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe on Tuesday (July 30) said he had buried the hatchet with his main political foe, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangiraiahead of Wednesday's (July 31) poll.
Mugabe, 89, is seeking to extend his ZANU-PF grip on power in a country he has led for the past 33 years.Flanked by his defence minister and two stuffed lions in the colonial grandeur of theState House in Harare, Mugabe joked with journalists telling them that he even has plans how he would spend his time if his time in office came to an end after Wednesday's vote.
"I will spend my time the same way I spent those years, you look at Zimbabwe and you think there nothing to do in Zimbabwe, I am an educationist, I am an economist, I can do that, I am a politician, I am also now a good story teller you know, I could spend my time telling stories or writing them," he said.
Mugabe is criticized for a deepening political and economic crisis that has ruined the once-rich country he fought so hard to free from white minority rule.
But he remains defiant, accusing the very Western countries that criticise his leadership of being responsible for Zimbabwe's woes.
"We don't listen to Europe and say what Europe says is what we do, quite the contrary because we know from experience that what they say is always what we who did never said nor want to hear, so we would say keep your own views to yourselves, if you do not like our elections don't want the results of our elections it's up to you, we will go ahead sanction s or no sanctions but do not interfere in our own country, if they want to be friendly we are open we have never ever said we were enemies, it is them who has made us enemies not the opposite," he said.
Mugabe likened the run-up to the July 31 vote to a boxing bout that - importantly - ends in a handshake, not bloodshed.
"I got my own fare share of criticism and I also dealt back lefts and uppercuts and all that kind of thing but that is the game and we do hope that it has been a model of future campaigns," he said mimicking the movements of a boxer as he sat behind an ornate wooden table on the front steps of the mansion.
Mugabe's words are in marked contrast to the cut and thrust of what he described as an "energy-sapping" campaign, and may go some way to soothing the fears ofZimbabwe's 13 million people of a repeat of the violence that broke out after Mugabe lost the first round of an election in 2008.
With no reliable opinion polls, it is hard to say whether 61-year-old Tsvangirai - now Prime Minister in a fractious unity government - will succeed in his third attempt to unseat Mugabe, who has run the southern African nation since independence from Britain in 1980.
Both sides are forecasting landslide wins but the bigger question is whether the loser will accept the result of a poll dogged by logistical problems and allegations of vote-rigging.