Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai 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 today to campaign for the June 27th 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 29th, 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 yesterday the result had been "disastrous", and vowed he would not lose power to an 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 per cent inflation, 80 per cent unemployment, chronic food and fuel shortages and sent a flood of refugees to neighbouring countries.