ZIMBABWE: Zimbabwe's president, Mr Robert Mugabe, has chosen March 31st as the date for the country's parliamentary general election, the official government gazette announced yesterday.
The election is expected to test how far Mr Mugabe's government has yielded to international pressure for a fair vote as well as testing the popularity of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
The MDC claims that Mr Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party robbed it of victory in the last parliamentary contest in June 2000, and in the presidential poll in 2002, through rigging and a violent campaign against the opposition.
Mr Mugabe, who turns 81 later this month and has been in power since independence from Britain in 1980, denies rigging the elections. He says he is being targeted for retribution by western powers opposed to his policy of seizing white-owned farms for landless blacks.
Mr Mugabe's party has used its majority in parliament to pass a set of legal reforms intended to meet standards set by the 14-member regional grouping, Southern African Development Community (SADC), for fair elections. But the MDC insists that the reforms - including the appointment of an independent electoral commission - do not go far enough.
The MDC has threatened to boycott the March vote, arguing that the prevailing electoral climate favours ZANU-PF. Among other things, it accuses the authorities of selectively applying security laws banning the holding of rallies without police clearance, saying that this has hampered its election campaign.
The MDC's legal affairs secretary, Mr David Coltart, said that the date came as no surprise. However, the opposition still had to meet to formally decide whether it would participate in the election.
"The timing of the elections is irrelevant. We are ready to take on ZANU-PF any time. What is important to us is the conditions," he said. - (Reuters)