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Robert Mugabe announces March general elections

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe announced on Friday that the crisis-hit country would stage a general election on March 29, when he will seek a sixth term in office.

A statement in the name of Mugabe, posted in a government gazette, said the elections would be held the day after the parliament in Harare is dissolved.

The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which has been negotiating with Mugabe's party over the framework for the elections, denounced the move as an "act of madness" but stopped short of calling a boycott.

In the gazette, Mugabe wrote: "Now therefore under and by virtue of the powers vested in the president as aforesaid, I do by this proclamation dissolve parliament with effect from midnight the 28 March 2008."

The joint parliamentary and presidential election will be held against a backdrop of an economic meltdown with the annual rate of inflation officially put at nearly 8,000 percent. Economists believe the figure is closer to 50,000 percent.

Unemployment is running at around 80 percent, while basic foodstuffs such as cooking oil and sugar are now a scarce commodity in the one-time regional breadbasket.

Mugabe however has blamed the country's economic woes on a limited program of sanctions imposed by the EU and US after he allegedly rigged his reelection in 2002.

Zimbabwe has also been plagued by political violence with several senior MDC figures, including its leader Morgan Tsvangirai, assaulted by members of the security forces as they tried to stage an anti-government rally in March.

The opposition was given permission to hold a rally earlier this week but only after challenging a police ban in court.

Tsvangirai was briefly detained ahead of that rally when he was picked up by police at his home, prompting him to question whether elections could take place on a level playing field.

"If this is the reaction of this dictatorship, then the elections are a farce," he told supporters.

The 83-year-old, who has ruled the former British colony since independence in 1980, was confirmed as his Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) candidate at a party conference in the capital Harare last month.

South African President Thabo Mbeki has been mediating between ZANU-PF and the MDC in the run-up to the polls in an effort sponsored by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), saying on a visit to Harare last week that "very good progress" had been made.

However opposition sources said they had tried to get Mbeki to use his influence on Mugabe to postpone the polls until a new constitution is in place, an idea that the Zimbabwean leader has shown no sign of entertaining.

MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said Mugabe had "jumped the gun" with the announcement, which he called a slap in the face to Mbeki's mediation efforts.

"It's an act of madness and arrogance," Chamisa said.
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