HARARE, July (ANA) - Deposed nonagenarian Robert Mugabe on Sunday urged Zimbabweans to vote against coup plotters, saying MDC Alliance presidential candidate Nelson Chamisa was the better choice.
seemingly muddying the waters for incumbent Emmerson Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF party hours before the polls open.
Speaking at press-briefing at his famous "Blue Roof" mansion, Mugabe, who said he could not vote for those who tormented him, implored Zimbabweans to vote for Chamisa on Monday in order to return the country to legality, democracy and constitutionality.
“We have a wrong list of aspirants to power,” Mugabe said.
As many as 23 candidates are vying for the top job, with Chamisa and the incumbent Mnangagwa being the main contestants.
“I won’t vote for people who have tormented me. I’ll make my choice among the other 22,” said Mugabe.
Asked whom he preferred in this election between Mnangagwa and the opposition, he responded: “I can’t vote Zanu PF.”
Pressed to comment further, Mugabe said People’s Rainbow Coalition leader Joice Mujuru, his former deputy, was not offering much and “the better one (candidate)" is Chamisa. He also said MDC-T leader Thokozani Khupe had no support.
Mugabe said he was yet to meet Chamisa, adding he (Chamisa) “seems to be doing well going by his drive”.
“Let them (Zimbabweans) decide. There should be a big no to guns,” Mugabe said.
“May tomorrow (30 July) be the voice of the people to say this (military on the streets) never again. Never again experience a situation where the army is used to thrust one man (Mnangagwa) into power,” Mugabe said, speaking under a posh gazebo overlooking a lake and mountain at his private residence.
He urged the electorate to thrust away the “hypocrisy” adding: “I pray that tomorrow brings us good news.”
Often being helped sit straight in position by one of his aides, Mugabe described the current administration as “evil and malicious characters”.
He said it was “all nonsense” that he wanted to leave power to his wife, former First Lady Grace.
Grace, who was present at the press conference and clad in a grey throw-over, white shirt, black slacks and spotting expensive jewellery, constantly interjected as the veteran former ruling party leader gave his speech.
Mugabe - who turned 94 in February, and helped form Zanu PF in 1963, which he led for since then - said the events that happened last November leading to his resignation as head of State was “the greatest injustice we have done to ourselves”. He said he was removed in a "coup d'état".
It will be the first time Zimbabweans vote Monday where Mugabe’s name will not be on the ballot paper, and neither his long-time opponent Morgan Tsvangirai, who succumbed to cancer of the colon on Valentine’s Day this year.
Monday has been declared a public holiday and some 71,000 policemen have been deployed to polling stations dotted across the country. Foreign observers have also been deployed.
- African News Agency (ANA)
