Tuesday, December 02, 2008

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Tsvangirai refuses to return over assasination fears

Saturday 17 May 2008

Zimbabwe's opposition leader postponed his return from Europe for next month's election run-offs, after a supposed assassination plot was uncovered.

Special Report   Struggle for leadership in Zimbabwe

Saturday 17 May 2008

By Reuters

Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Saturday postponed his expected return home to contest an election run-off after his party discovered an assassination plot against him, his spokesman said.

Movement for Democratic Change leader Tsvangirai has been out of Zimbabwe for over a month and had been due to return from Europe on Saturday to campaign for the June 27 second round ballot against President Robert Mugabe.

"We have received information from a credible source concerning a planned assassination attempt against President Tsvangirai," spokesman George Sibotshiwe told Reuters.

Tsvangirai won the first round on March 29, but not by enough votes to avoid a second round against Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe for nearly three decades.

The March elections were followed by widespread violence, which the MDC says left at least 40 of its supporters dead and scores of others injured. It accuses Mugabe's ZANU-PF party of a campaign of intimidation. ZANU-PF blames the opposition for the violence.

ZANU-PF lost control of parliament in the March elections for the first time since independence in 1980.

Mugabe told a party conference on Friday the result had been "disastrous", and vowed he would not lose power to and opposition he said was backed by "a hostile axis of powerful foreign governments" and Western imperialists.

Zimbabweans are hoping the June poll will help end political and economic turmoil which has brought 165,000 percent
inflation, 80 percent unemployment, chronic food and fuel shortages and sent a flood of refugees to neighbouring
countries.


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