Mugabe opponent plans return

Will participate in runoff despite violent retribution

JOHANNESBURG - Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai announced yesterday that he would soon return to his country to participate in a presidential runoff election despite a surge in political violence against his supporters.

Tsvangirai called on southern African regional leaders to ensure that the campaign for the runoff, which has not yet been scheduled, be free of violence and overseen by a reformed electoral commission and international observers. He stopped short of saying that his participation depended on these conditions.

"We will contest the runoff, and the people will finally prevail," Tsvangirai said at a news conference in Pretoria, the capital of South Africa, where he has been based for the past month. "The people have spoken before, and the people will speak again. I am ready, and the people are ready for the final round."

The announcement reversed weeks of vows by the opposition to boycott any new election against President Robert Mugabe amid the worst state-sponsored political violence in Zimbabwe in many years. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change has maintained that Tsvangirai narrowly received an outright majority in the March 29 election and that a second round of voting was therefore unnecessary.

But according to the electoral commission's official results, Tsvangirai won the first round with 47.9 percent to 43.2 percent for Mugabe, leaving both short of the majority needed to avoid a runoff. The opposition has long complained that the electoral commission is biased toward Mugabe and inflated his vote count.

"So Tsvangirai has made up his mind," Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga told Bloomberg news service yesterday. "He will lose the rerun because we are already campaigning for our President Mugabe."

Yesterday's announcement followed weeks of furious internal debate among opposition leaders about how to proceed against Mugabe. Tsvangirai told reporters that he intends to return to Zimbabwe in the next two days. He left the country soon after the election and has publicly expressed concern that he could face arrest or physical assault in Zimbabwe, where he has been repeatedly arrested and severely beaten in the past. In an interview last month, when asked about why he was in South Africa instead of Zimbabwe, Tsvangirai said, "Do you want a dead hero?"

His time away has coincided with a sharply rising campaign of violent retribution against opposition activists, especially in rural areas that Mugabe's party long have controlled.