Video: Mugabe threatens to arrest Tsvangirai | MDC election advert banned

Zimbabwe's opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, is facing an “avalanche of calls” to withdraw from this Friday’s presidential election after a campaign of murder, assault and intimidation by supporters of President Robert Mugabe.

Tsvangirai is expected to decide tomorrow whether he will contest the election even though 85 members of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) have been killed and evidence is mounting of attempts to rig the voting.

The 56-year-old former trade union leader has previously indicated that nothing would deter him from fighting the election. But senior party officials warned yesterday that there was little point in a contest that Mugabe is determined to steal.

Mugabe told a campaign rally last Friday: “Only God who appointed me will remove me – not the MDC, not the British.”

Yesterday Roy Bennett, the MDC’s treasurer and close adviser to Tsvangirai, said that violence across the country had discredited the elections.

“I don’t see there is any difference whether we participate or whether we don’t,” he added. Bennett, who had been a strong advocate of participating, said the party was receiving “mixed messages” from members about whether to declare a boycott.

However, Nelson Chamisa, a spokesman for the MDC, said it had received a “huge avalanche of calls from supporters, especially in the rural areas, not to be participants in this charade”.

The violence unleashed by Mugabe and a small group of military and police commanders intensified last week. On Thursday alone it was reported that 14 people had been killed, at least four in petrol bombings.

The latest independent poll seen by diplomats in Harare last week suggested that Tsvangirai would win a free and fair election with 63% support, compared with 37% for Mugabe.

Tsvangirai claimed victory at the polls in March but Zimbabwe’s election commission ruled that, although he had beaten Mugabe, he secured just under 50% of the total vote and would have to face a run-off.

With far fewer election monitors this time most observers expect this poll will be fixed.

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