Tsvangirai invades Mugabe's heartland

Tsvangirai invades Mugabe's heartland

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By Peta Thornycroft

BAREFOOT and hungry, they had trudged across the remote plains of rural Zimbabwe where President Robert Mugabe's dominance was once unquestioned.

Yet this ragged crowd of 1500 had not gathered to cheer Mr Mugabe or any other figure from his Zanu-PF party, but to hear Morgan Tsvangirai, embattled leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

Defying years of violence and intimidation, Mr Tsvangirai is taking his campaign for the parliamentary elections due on March 31 into Mr Mugabe's rural heartland.

Wednesday's MDC rally in the shadow of Mount Devedzo, 225 kilometres south-east of Harare, would once have been impossible. This area supported Mr Mugabe during the guerilla war against white Rhodesia in the 1970s. Its votes have sustained him in every election held in independent Zimbabwe.

But the crowd's enthusiasm for Mr Tsvangirai demonstrated that the President can no longer assume their support. "Morgan, we are hungry," they sang as the opposition leader rose to speak.

"Here as everywhere else we can see there are no crops and the land is not being used," he said. "We know people are hungry."

The plains around Mount Devedzo provide visible evidence of the cost of Mr Mugabe's policies. This is some of the best farming land in Africa. Yet the fields are choked with weeds. All the white-owned farms have been seized and largely abandoned by their new owners.

Tens of thousands of black labourers once worked the farms. They lost their homes and jobs when their employers were dispossessed. Now they are among the countless thousands of Zimbabweans uprooted by the country's economic collapse.

The hardship has bred a renewed sense of defiance. "Zanu-PF still come door to door to threaten that we will be kicked out of our house if we don't vote for them but we don't care now and we teach our parents not to fear," said Batsirai Muzondo, 24, who had walked 13 kilometres to see Mr Tsvangirai.

This was Mr Tsvangirai's 19th rally in rural constituencies since February 25. He plans to address another 31 before polling day.

For the first time since the founding of his party more than five years ago, he finds himself leading a political campaign that seems almost normal. The violence that peaked before the disputed presidential polls of 2002 has subsided. There is less of the brutal intimidation that formed a central part of Zanu-PF's electioneering manual.

For the first time, Mr Tsvangirai has been able to move beyond the cities, where his support is strongest - a development that mystifies the MDC.

It appears that Mr Mugabe is supremely confident that he will win the election, despite the fact that Zanu-PF's leading figures are incompetent, apathetic and obsessed with infighting.

There could be a sinister explanation for his confidence. For the first time, the polling stations will be run by the army and police who are loyal to him - Telegraph
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