UK NEWS

DESPERATE MUGABE FACING DEFEAT IN ZIMBABWE

Robert Mugabe is clinging on to power

Wednesday April 2,2008

By John Chapman

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ROBERT Mugabe is today hammering out a deal to end his brutal 28-year reign in Zimbabwe.

With election results trickling out, it appears Mr Mugabe is trying to buy time to negotiate the terms of departure.

Military chiefs and advisers discussed the president stepping down in a series of meetings.

Mr Mugabe, 84, has been told he is far behind opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in preliminary results of the presidential elections and there could be an uprising if he rigs the ballot to declare himself the winner.

Rumours swept the country last night that Mr Mugabe, pictured above, had fled to Malaysia or Hong Kong. This was denied.

Support for Mr Mugabe within the ruling Zanu-PF is beginning to erode after the apparently comprehensive defeat.

One report said that Mr Tsvangirai had been negotiating with Mr Mugabe’s aides.

Today, the state-owned Herald newspaper said on Wednesday MDC and ZANU-PF would tie in the parliamentary poll and projections for the presidential election showed neither Tsvangirai or Mugabe will get the 51 percent majority needed.

"The pattern of results in the presidential election show that none of the candidates will garner more than 50 percent of the vote, forcing a re-run."

Speculation remains rife that Mugabe would concede defeat and enter into a deal to go quietly.

But Mr Tsvangirai said: “There is no discussion. There is no way we would enter into any deal before the Electoral Commission announces a final result.”

Mr Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change has been worried the government might arrest opposition leaders or the military might intervene.

But Mr Tsvangirai is said to have assured military chiefs that a transfer of power will not lead to prosecutions for past crimes, or a purge.

The MDC also reached out to more moderate elements of Zanu-PF. “Mugabe and some of those around him decided to try and brazen it out by fixing the results,” said an MDC source.

“But Zanu-PF has taken a big blow and there are important people who recognise they cannot go against the will of the people.

“They are shocked and do not have the spirit to go down fighting for Mugabe."

TOO BAD THIS CAME TOO LATE FOR SIMON MANN

02.04.08, 10:38pm

He paid his debt in Mugabe's hell hole of a prison, then was extradited to Equatorial Africa in exchange for oil. Now he's in Black Beach, courtesy of Obiang Nguema.

I don't hold out much hope that aid will come from Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

Some others, some many others, funded this failed coup. There is no way that a seaoned ex-SAS officer and mercenary would have sat around his swimming pool, joking about his plans for a coup by his buddies, just for his own personal gain. He has been described as poker-faced and secretive. Someone used him. Someone in the British Government needs to step up to the plate and get him freed.

I hope Mugabe gets his just deserts, what he meted out to others - multiplied by 10. Then again, I guess being in Brown's Cabinet would fulfill all of that.

• Posted by: Rothaymere • Report Comment

NOT TO WORRY MR MUGABE, YOU CAN COME TO BRITAIN...

02.04.08, 12:15pm

After all, we'll take anyone.

You never know, there might even be a place for you within the British government. Your style of politics will fit very nicely with the way things are done over here.

• Posted by: Veltro205 • Report Comment

I WOULD BE HAPPY ...........

02.04.08, 11:05am

I would be happy to give Brown a generous 24 hours to negotiate the terms of his own departure. Unlike Bob Mugabe, Brown has never won an election in his own right.

• Posted by: Peter_Pan • Report Comment

THE SAME AS BUFFOON BROWN

02.04.08, 10:40am

Just as Brown has reduced England to a pile of rubble and famine.

Mugabe and Brown would make a great double act.

• Posted by: ReubenMohawali • Report Comment

DISPATCH MUGABE TO THE GALLOWS

02.04.08, 10:24am

The sooner the people of zimbabwe dispatch this tyranical despot Mugabe to the Gallows, the sooner the western world will be helping them to rebuild their country into a state of prosperity. That man has done nothing but reduce a once prosperous nation to rubble and famine, while he has been lining his pockets, and those of his loyal henchmen with the nations wealth.

• Posted by: Pentest • Report Comment