ZIMBABWE will hold a delayed presidential election run-off on 27 June in which the opposition hopes to oust Robert Mugabe after almost 30 years in power.
The long-awaited second round follows a disputed 29 March election in which official results showed that Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), beat Mr Mugabe, but not by enough votes to avoid a run-off.
M
r Mugabe, 84, a former guerrilla leader, told a ruling Zanu-PF party conference yesterday the result had been "disastrous" and vowed he would not lose power to an opposition backed by "a hostile axis of powerful foreign governments" and western imperialists.
Mr Tsvangirai, who has been abroad since shortly after the March election to garner support, yesterday said in Belfast: "We will participate in the run-off, but ... violence has to cease for an election to be conducted or that election will not be legitimate."
Noel Kututwa, the chairman of the independent observer group the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, said: "To hold an election under these circumstances ... I think the legitimacy of that election will be called into question."
The regional SADC grouping which is due to monitor the run-off said this week that conditions were neither safe nor fair yet for a fresh vote. The MDC on Thursday called for an urgent SADC meeting to avoid "rivers of dead people".
Regional states are concerned the instability and economic crisis in Zimbabwe could take their toll, with inflation running at 165,000 per cent and unemployment at 80 per cent.
The full article contains 268 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
