A vote for opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe’s June 27 run-off election will be akin to an act of war, Vice-President Joseph Msika was quoted as saying on Thursday.
”Voting for the Movement for Democratic Change [MDC] in the run-off will be like voting for Rhodesia and the British, which means voting for war,” Msika told a rally in the south-western town of Zaka on Wednesday, according to a report in the state-run Herald daily.
”However, when I say voting for the opposition is like voting for war, it does not mean that once an MDC government is elected we will take up arms. But trouble will definitely start if whites take advantage of that, if they try and reverse the land-reform programme.
”I will never accept to be ruled by an MDC government that is keen to sell the country’s birthright. I would rather die fighting.”
Tsvangirai, leader of the MDC, is hoping to topple veteran President Robert Mugabe in the election at the month end after narrowly failing to win an outright majority in the first round in March.
Mugabe and his top lieutenants have frequently accused Tsvangirai of being a puppet of former colonial power Britain.
The 84-year-old president, who played a leading role in the 1970s liberation movement when the country was known as Rhodesia, has ruled uninterrupted since independence in 1980 but now faces the biggest challenge to his grip on power.
Zimbabwe’s economy has been on a downward spiral since the turn of the decade when Mugabe launched a controversial land-reform programme which saw about 4 000 white-owned farms expropriated by the state.
Msika said that Tsvangirai would try to reverse the changes in the country since independence were he to triumph in the ballot.
”We almost lost our sovereignty and all the gains of our independence, but we have got another chance to redeem ourselves on June 27,” he said.
”On June 27 let’s go and vote for President Mugabe and shame the West and its imperialist machinations.”
The MDC said on Thursday that its secretary general, Tendai Biti, was arrested at Harare airport as he returned home from South Africa to campaign for the election, his party said.
”As they were coming out of the plane he was taken by plain-clothes police and taken downstairs,” MDC director of information Luke Tamborinyoka, who was at the airport, said.
”It was about 10 men in plain clothes. They handcuffed and took him to a room downstairs,” he said. Biti had been wanted by the authorities after proclaiming on March 30 that the MDC had won both the presidential and parliamentary elections before an official announcement was made.
Observers
Meanwhile, more than 100 observers from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) began deploying across Zimbabwe on Thursday ahead of the June 27 run-off, the 14-nation regional bloc said.
”We are now ready for deployment. Today [Thursday] is our D-day. Today we are now going out,” Thanki Mothae, director of SADC’s secretariat on politics, defence and security, told reporters in Harare.
Mothae said 120 observers were fanning out across Zimbabwe in the first wave of deployments, but more than 400 should be in place by polling day.
”We had earlier anticipated that we would have 300 observers or so but based on the responses from member countries we will have more than 400 by polling day,” said Mothae.
Although the Zimbabwe government has banned Western countries from monitoring the run-off, observer missions from the African Union and the Pan-African Parliament are also due to deploy before election day.
SADC was heavily criticised by the MDC after a mission gave the first round of voting on March 29 a largely clean bill of health even before any of the results had been announced.
In a follow-up report, SADC expressed its concern over mounting levels of violence but apportioned the blame to all parties.
Mothae said it was important that the latest SADC mission was even-handed in its approach.
”Let’s be very careful on the statements we are going to make out there. We are not here to take sides but to help the people of Zimbabwe,” he said.
”Whatever we do must be in line with the laws of the country,” he added. –AFP
