Zimbabwe Opposition Predicts Win

Cheered by 30,000 boisterous supporters, Zimbabwe’s main opposition movement predicted Sunday it would overtake President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party in parliamentary elections set for next weekend.

Sunday’s large turnout in support of the Movement for Democratic Change dwarfed a similar gathering Saturday, when fewer than 6,000 people showed up near Harare to hear Mugabe address followers of the governing ZANU-PF party.

“The Movement for Democratic Change is not an opposition party,” party leader Morgan Tsvangirai told the cheering crowd at the Rufaro soccer stadium. “The ruling party is an opposition party.”

The election campaign has been marred by violence, and at least three people suspected of being ruling party supporters were beaten by the crowd Sunday.

One of the victims, Tapiwa Chiwera, 26, acknowledged he was wearing a Mugabe T-shirt under a sweater, but said he was doing so only because he came to the rally from work, where employees are required to wear ruling party T-shirts.

“My intention was not to come here and provoke the MDC,” he said, blood dripping from his nose. He insisted he supported the opposition.

Mugabe’s term runs until 2002, and his party and its allies control all but three of the 150 seats in parliament. However, the opposition has attracted large crowds, and recent opinion polls show it could make large gains in the elections set for June 24 to 25.

Tsvangirai said Mugabe should step down if his party loses the elections, although the president would not be required to do so under the constitution.

“Robert Mugabe is a violent president who doesn’t love the people of this country,” Tsvangirai said. “He only loves power.”

The Sunday rally was held at the same stadium where Mugabe led Zimbabwe’s independence celebrations in April 1980.

“[Mugabe] was given his power on this ground,” Tsvangirai said. “We now say to him that he should go and rest, for he has failed.”

MDC Secretary-General Welshman Ncube told the crowd that Mugabe blames Zimbabwe’s high unemployment, fuel shortages and surging inflation on white commercial farmers and the British.

Tsvangirai said the party would devalue the Zimbabwe dollar, which was fixed at 38 to the U.S. dollar early last year. He also said the party would fight corruption, reduce the size of government and withdraw troops from the Congo, where they are supporting the government against rebel factions.

Mugabe’s party has called for large-scale land redistribution, and the government has listed 804 white-owned farms to be seized and turned over to poor blacks. The president has said he is considering nationalizing all white-owned land. He supports liberation war veterans and ruling party mobs who have occupied more than 1,400 white-owned farms.

Tsvangirai said the MDC supports land reform but said that land should not be seized without landowners having a say in the process.