Mugabe's allies go on the offensive

An embattled Robert Mugabe today began a propaganda campaign seemingly designed to back him in a new ballot for Zimbabwe’s presidency.

The state-controlled Herald newspaper ran a series of articles portraying his political opponents as divided. Controlled by former colonial ruler Britain and threatening land reform.

Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party has already lost control of the country’s parliament to Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change.

But official figures for the presidential election have still to be revealed, six days after voting took place.

Mugabe is facing the biggest crisis of his 28 years in power, with reports that he has lost the vote and is playing for time so he can rig a second round of elections.

His deputy information minister Bright Matonga said today Mugabe was ready for a run-off.

Mugabe, who has not seen in public since Saturday’s vote, was said to be pondering conflicting advice on whether to abandon power or face a run-off, a humiliating dilemma for a man who has ruled for 28 years.

The Herald claimed Mr Tsvangirai would hand back farmland seized under Mugabe’s controversial reforms to the whites.

Mugabe claimed the reforms were to benefit poor blacks, but gave most farms to relatives, friends and cronies, with some senior officials and military commanders receiving several fertile farms that have been allowed to run to weeds.

The Herald said white farmers had returned from Zambia and Mozambique and were threatening to evict blacks. It quoted the war veterans association that spearheaded violent land grabs as saying “We will be left with no option except to take up arms and defend our pieces of land.”

War veteran Garikai Sithole was quoted urging Zimbabweans to “avoid aborting the revolution at this critical stage”, according to the newspaper.

Sithole said people were blaming Mugabe for their woes, but said: “When you cannot maintain your family and you turn around and say, ’It’s Mugabe’s fault,’ this is just hiding from the truth.”

Yesterday official election returns showed Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party had lost its parliamentary majority.

Official results gave ZANU-PF 1,112,773 of votes to 1,038,512 for Tsvangirai’s party.

A total of 2,405,147 valid votes were cast, according to the figures, supporting opposition charges that the voters’ roll of 5.9 million was hugely inflated with names of dead and fictitious people and some of the estimated five million Zimbabweans who have become political and economic refugees abroad.

Mugabe blames Britain and other Western nations for the collapse of Zimbabwe’s economy.

Targeted Western sanctions, though, only involve visa bans and frozen bank accounts for Mugabe and about 100 of his allies.

Mugabe calls opposition leaders stooges and puppets of Britain. The Herald said “the British government and Prime Minister Gordon Brown have now come out in the open as the real power behind MDC-Tsvangirai.”

Religious leaders and diplomats were involved in a flurry of initiatives today to try to persuade Mugabe to step down.