Zimbabwe's presidential showdown set for June 27

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Seven weeks after the presidential election, Zimbabwe finally set a runoff date Friday, saying longtime President Robert Mugabe and rival Morgan Tsvangirai will face off in a June 27 ballot that the opposition fears will be skewed by thuggery and fraud.

Opposition supporters have been beaten, killed and driven from their homes in a recent campaign of terror that observers say is meant to secure Mugabe's lock on power.

(enlarge photo) Two unidentified Zimbabwean school girls, walk past campaign posters of President Robert Mugabe and the main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, in Harare, Friday, May, 16, 2008. Elections officials say the presidential runoff between President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai will be held by July 31, but the opposition has insisted that it should be next week. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

Tsvangirai had insisted Thursday that the runoff be held next week, amid fears further delay would mean even more violence, but he said after the election commission's announcement that he planned to compete in the ballot.

Tsvangirai, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an international liberal party conference in Belfast, Northern Ireland, said setting the June date was illegal, but "we will contest."

The opposition leader has claimed he won the March 29 presidential election outright, although independent monitors disagreed. Official results released May 2 gave Tsvangirai the most votes, but not the majority needed to avoid a second round against Mugabe.

In parliamentary elections held with the presidential ballot, the opposition won a majority of the seats, ending the ruling party's long control of the assembly.

Mugabe expressed determination Friday, telling supporters at the headquarters of his ZANU-PF party that while he will one day "be succeeded," it will not be by an opposition that he accuses of being prepared to lead the country back to colonial rule.

He also said the March 29 balloting "was indeed disastrous" for his party.

Mugabe has ruled since independence from Britain in 1980 and once was hailed for promoting racial reconciliation and bringing education and health care to the black majority. But in recent years he has been accused of becoming authoritarian and pursuing policies that wrecked a farm-based economy that had been the thriving breadbasket of southern Africa.

Tsvangirai's party planned a parliamentary caucus Saturday and a campaign rally Sunday. Party officials have indicated that Tsvangirai, who has been out of the country since shortly after the first round of voting, would be back in Zimbabwe for those events.

In Belfast, Tsvangirai said he "must return to Zimbabwe to be with our people and to lift them out of the darkness" — but he did not give a date. His spokesman, George Sibotshiwe, said no date had been set.

Tsvangirai has survived three assassination attempts, including one in 1997 by unidentified assailants who tried to throw him out a 10th floor office window. Last year, he was hospitalized after a brutal assault by police at a prayer rally, and images seen around the world of his bruised and swollen face have come to symbolize the challenge dissenters face in Zimbabwe.

But he said he did not fear assassination upon his return, adding that he will face the same risks confronting his rank-and-file supporters.

Human rights groups say dozens of opposition supporters have been killed and hundreds tortured in recent weeks by Zimbabwean security forces and activists loyal to Mugabe. Tens of thousands of opposition supporters also have been driven from their homes, the groups say.

Tsvangirai described Mugabe's government as "a regime which operates not on the basis of the law, but operates on the basis of impunity from the law." He said the June election date was an example of Mugabe officials "changing goal posts to suit themselves."

Zimbabwe law says a runoff should be within 21 days of official election results, which would have been May 23, but the ruling party says the law allows that period to be extended 90 days. The election commission said it set a late June date because it needs to devote "substantial" resources to organizing the runoff.

Tsvangirai said he hoped to persuade new political factions, and even ruling party supporters, to join his Movement for Democratic Change before the runoff.

"We are actually going to broaden the coalition beyond just the MDC, and I am confident that even some members of ZANU-PF would rather work for the MDC than work for Mugabe — who is 84 years by the way," Tsvangirai said.

He said Mugabe's regime hoped to intimidate tens of thousands of voters into staying away from the polls and called on the 15-nation Southern African Development Community to send poll observers to ensure this did not happen.

"Violence has to cease for an election to be conducted. Otherwise that election will not be legitimate," he said.

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Associated Press writer Shawn Pogatchnik in Belfast, Northern Ireland, contributed to this report.

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