Farm tools used to buy votes

called to donate farming implements to his loyalists. “Through our unshakeable determination, today we are proud masters of our economic and political destiny. The land should now be transformed into hectares and hectares of maximum productivity.”
Mugabe was speaking at a campaign rally where he donated more than 2 million herd of cattle, 925 tractors, 35 combine harvesters, 586 disc ploughs, 463 disc harrows, 78 fertiliser spreaders and 71 planters to his supporters. The move was widely seen here as a vote buying gimmick.
In 2000 when the land grab began, Britain offered £36 million for land redistribution, but only once the occupations had ended. The money was actually earmarked in 1998, but has been held back because London feared it might be misused by Mugabe’s political cronies rather than spent on the rural poor.