Mugabe insists on harmonized elections

But speaking at the ZANU PF annual conference in Mutare, Mugabe said the call for presidential elections alone was nonsense and whatever elections we are going to have must be done together and we must do it harmoniously. Despite Mugabes tough talking, its alleged that the real reason for insisting on harmonized elections is that he does not trust his ZANU PF MPs and party activists to campaign for him, and he wants them tied up in their own parliamentary campaigns.

For the first time Mugabe admitted to ZANU PF delegates that he lost the March 2008 presidential elections to Tsvangirai, and he blamed party activists who campaigned against him. We heard others saying vote for this one and not this one. I lost some votes as a result of that, he said. Mugabe further admitted he was only saved by electoral requirements that a run-off should be held if the winner of the first round did not garner more than 50 percent of the votes.

Political commentator Bekithemba Mhlanga told SW Radio Africa that Mugabe needed harmonized elections so he could use the ZANU PF MPs fighting for their seats. Without this motivation the MPs and other ZANU PF officials might see an opportunity to get rid of Mugabe, whom they blame for costing them votes. Little wonder Mugabe took time to remind them that if he had been forced to step down in 2008 this would have affected them all.

There were no surprises when the ZANU PF conference endorsed Mugabe as their candidate for the elections in 2011. Mugabe will be 87 years old by the time the polls are held, making him the second oldest person to be endorsed as a presidential candidate. The conference in Mutare was cheekily held at a venue which is just an hours drive away from the Marange diamond fields, home to massive looting by the military and others in the partys top hierarchy.

Meanwhile Mugabe also used the ZANU PF conference to announce the worst kept secret in the coalition government, when he vowed he would never swear in MDC-T treasurer Roy Bennett, as Deputy Minister of Agriculture. He said his party would not work with someone who would reverse the gains of the liberation struggle. I cannot swear him in, some things are just not possible, he said.

The latest remarks represent a u-turn from when Mugabe told CNN in an interview that Bennett would be sworn in, once the courts had cleared him of cooked up terrorism and banditry charges. Bennett was acquitted, but the state went on to file a frivolous appeal in an attempt to keep the matter in the courts. In May it was left to ZANU PF apologist, Jonathan Moyo, to state the obvious fact that the quandary has never been a legal one but rather a political one.