Cleric behind uprising call is 'mad liar' says Mugabe camp

A RESPECTED Roman Catholic cleric who called for a peaceful uprising against Robert Mugabe was branded a "mad, inveterate liar" by the Zimbabwean president’s party yesterday.

With parliamentary elections only days away, Pius Ncube, the Archbishop of Bulawayo, provoked his government’s wrath by claiming Mr Mugabe was starving his opponents in the southern Matabeleland province.

In an interview with a South African newspaper, the archbishop urged Zimbabweans to mount a "non-violent, popular, mass uprising" to oust the president, who has been in power since independence in 1980.

That provoked an angry response from the Mugabe administration.

"He [Ncube] is a mad, inveterate liar," Nathan Shamuyarira, a spokesman for the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) told the state-run Herald newspaper. "He has been lying for the past two years."

Tempers are rising ahead of Thursday’s polls, which will pit Mr Mugabe’s party against the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Morgan Tsvangirai.

It decided to take part in the elections only last month and says it is banking on Zimbabweans’ courage to defeat Mr Mugabe. More than 5.6 million are registered to vote.

At 81, Mr Mugabe is fighting what most believe will be his last political battle, and it is one the veteran guerrilla leader has every intention of winning - by any means, the opposition has claimed.

In a move likely to heighten tension, thousands of extra police were deployed across the country at the weekend. State television and newspapers said about 3,000 additional officers were being deployed at 8,200 polling stations to "ensure that peace, safety and security continue to prevail".

In Harare early yesterday, military police in camouflage gear and red berets were seen near the city centre, preparing to set up a roadblock. Increased numbers of police were seen along the sides of the main arterial route through the city.

The MDC is likely to view the massive deployment as yet another intimidatory tactic. The party accuses Mr Mugabe of stealing the country’s last two elections, in 2000 and 2002.

While there has been no repeat of previous bloody election campaigns, the opposition claims Mr Mugabe has used intimidation, propaganda and hundreds of thousands of dead or missing voters to steal this week’s poll.

Yesterday, the MCD alleged that ZANU-PF had stepped up its efforts to stop opposition supporters voting. At least 72 people were arrested on Sunday for chanting MDC slogans after a huge rally, in Highfield, addressed by Mr Tsvangirai.

The MDC also claimed that up to 50,000 teachers had been employed as polling officers but deliberately sent to stations outside their constituencies so that they could not vote. Teachers are traditionally viewed with suspicion by the ruling party.

"We view this development as another of the regime’s futile attempts to steal the parliamentary elections," the MDC said in a statement.

Buoyed by the thousands of ecstatic supporters at its most recent rallies, the opposition is clinging to the belief it can win the polls, despite government intimidation.

"The people have shown that they are sick and tired of ZANU-PF’s empty rhetoric and false promises," the MDC’s Paul Themba Nyathi said yesterday.

His hopes may prove too high. For the MDC to win - and be able to deliver its promises of health, housing and schooling to an embattled electorate - it will have to take a record 76 of the 120 parliamentary seats that are being contested.

The opposition starts with a huge disadvantage: 30 seats have already been set aside for Mugabe appointees in the 150-seat parliament.

At the last parliamentary elections in 2000, the MDC, then a fledgling party, dealt a rude shock to Mr Mugabe, taking 57 seats against 62 for the ruling party. But Didymus Mutasa, ZANU-PF’s secretary for administration, boasts that, this time, "the opposition presence in parliament will be cut to 15 seats".

Many believe him. Habits of fear die hard in a nation run by one man for 25 years. Crisscrossing the country in recent weeks, often flanked by his unsmiling young wife, Grace, Mr Mugabe has issued a mixture of threats and warnings to his supporters. Last week, he told rural Zimbabweans they "owed him a debt" and that Thursday was "pay-back time".

Voters in some areas are reported to have been told that the indelible ink used to stamp voters will turn red if they vote for the MDC but remain black if they vote for ZANU-PF.

A few whites fear violence around the election.

"If there’s trouble, we’ll just slip across the border and come back when it’s all died down," one said.