Mugabe Launches Reelection Bid; Rival Detained

President Robert Mugabe kicked off his reelection campaign Friday saying Zimbabwe’s former white rulers back his main opposition party rival, who was briefly detained by police.

Police said they detained Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, and held him at the central police station in Harare, the capital, after finding a two-way radio during a search of his home.

He was released about 35 minutes later, police said.

“He was not arrested. He was merely called in connection with the security radio, which requires a license,” police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said.

The MDC said in a statement that the incident was part of an intimidation campaign against their leader, who poses the strongest electoral challenge to Mugabe, who came to power in 1980.

“All these incidents are part of [Mugabe’s] campaign strategy. . . . They are carefully designed to . . . throw [Tsvangirai’s] program off course and get him to think about his plight and not that of the people,” the MDC said.

Mugabe, launching his campaign for a March vote, urged his Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party to unite and defeat a surging MDC, which nearly defeated the ruling party in parliamentary elections last year.

That vote was marred by violence that left 31 people dead, most of them opposition supporters.

Mugabe, 77, vowed to stick to his controversial land redistribution program and to champion the interests of Zimbabwe’s black majority.

He charged that there are foreign moves to demonize him over the land issue. Mugabe dismissed the threat of sanctions against his ruling elite, saying delivering land to blacks is more important.

Mugabe repeated charges that Tsvangirai’s party is a puppet of his white opponents out to topple him over the land acquisition program.

The MDC says Mugabe is desperate as he faces an electorate struggling through a severe economic crisis that the MDC blames on mismanagement and Mugabe’s controversial land-seizure plan. The program has dramatically cut agricultural production in the country.