Mugabe accuses opposition of lying about Zimbabwe violence
Saturday, 21 Jun 2008 15:00
Robert Mugabe says lies spread about government-backed violence
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Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe has said that opposition parties in the country are spreading lies about government-backed violence against them.
The head of the southern
African country accused the opposition of spreading such information in order to reduce the legitimacy of next week's presidential polls.
Zimbabwe is set to have a run-off presidential election between Mr Mugabe and rival Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai on June 27th. Official results of the previous election on March 29th stated that neither candidate was able to secure a majority thus requiring another round to pick the country's head of state.
In a campaign rally on Friday, the Zimbabwean president said: "The MDC will never be allowed to rule this country - never ever."
Mr Mugabe has previously blamed the UK and US for the economic problems in the country and accused the opposition of catering to the interests of foreign powers.
"We will never allow an event like an election to reverse our independence, our sovereignty. Only God who appointed me will remove me - not the MDC, not the British," he added.
The MDC has previously announced that 70 of its activists or their spouses and children had been killed since the first vote three months ago.
Yesterday, a spokesman for the party, Nelson Chamisa, said that Mr Tsvangirai was under pressure to pull-out from the polls from members of his own party due to a lack of faith in the transparency of the elections.