Zimbabwe 'vote buying' row

Alleviating rural poverty is a major campaigning issue

By Joseph Winter in Harare

A row over vote buying has developed in Zimbabwe ahead of a by-election this weekend.

The ruling Zanu-PF party is trying to win back the Bikita-West seat in the south-east of the country from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

On Sunday, the government announced that 90,000 hectares of land would be redistributed in Bikita, and that 3m Zimbabwean dollars (just over $50,000) would be handed out in the area for income generating projects.

MDC Secretary-General Welshman Ncube expressed outrage at what he called "blatant vote-buying".

Cash for votes?

He accused the Zanu-PF government of using state resources to boost its campaign and said it was unfair for it to pour funds into an area during an election.

Information Minister Jonathan Moyo dismissed these allegations as untrue.

He argued that it was the job of the government to develop the country and this is what it was doing.

Test of support

In the general election, last June, the MDC won the seat by a few hundred votes but the MP has since died, causing the by-election.

Although the parliamentary balance of power will not be affected by whoever wins, both Zanu-PF and the MDC are taking it extremely seriously, as it will be seen as a gauge of which party is making ground in the crucial rural areas.

More than just verbal blows have been exchanged between supporters of the two parties.

Clashes have left one Zanu-PF activist dead, and 11 MDC activists have been charged with his murder.

The MDC say that its members have been attacked by Zanu-PF supporters.

Youths to be sent in

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai told a party rally on Monday that Zanu-PF had unleashed a reign of terror on his supporters.

"We are going to deploy about 20,000 youths to protect our parents who have fled their homes and sought refuge in the hills," he said.

Zanu-PF said it was shocked by this announcement, saying that the MDC was promoting violence.

Zanu-PF, which has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, narrowly defeated the MDC in June. The MDC won an unprecedented 57 of 120 parliamentary seats.

At least 31 people, most of them MDC supporters, were killed in the run-up to the poll.

The violence came amid an invasion of hundreds of mostly white-owned farms by supporters of President Robert Mugabe.