LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Zimbabwe: Robert Mugabe
built 216 days ago
Earlier this month a senior member of Zimbabwe's ruling party announced that he will challenge President Robert Mugabe on March 29 as an independent candidate. "I offer myself as candidate for the office of president," former finance minister Simba Makoni told reporters. He is seen as coming from the moderate wing of the Zanu-PF but does not have a strong grass-roots support base. The two opposition Movement for Democratic Change factions are each fielding candidates in the election.
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Zimbabwe uses the Zimbabwe dollar as its currency. The economy is currently in a bad situation. Foreign currency reserves are at very low levels, and the Zimbabwean Dollar has become very devalued. Just recently, three zeroes were taken off the Zimbabwean dollar (for example, $1,000,000 (one million dollars) would become $1000 (one thousand dollars)). Many observers link this to Mugabe's controversial Land Reform programme.
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Following last week’s arrests and beatings of several opposition leaders, including Morgan Tsvangirai, head of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), activists across Zimbabwe rallied to demand their release (IWPR). In an op-ed in Britain’s Independent, Tsvangirai writes, “Far from killing my spirit, the scars they brutally inflicted on me have reenergized me.” But Mugabe’s forces responded with more brutality, severely beating (SAPA) the MDC’s public information officer as he was preparing to make a flight to Brussels.
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The tragedy currently occurring in Zimbabwe completely contradicts this sort of logic. Zimbabwe is in the middle of an economic disintegration, with GDP declining for the seventh consecutive year, half what it was in 2000. Ever since President Mugabe's disastrous land-reform campaign (an entire article in itself), the country's farming, tourism, and gold sectors have collapsed. Unemployment is said to be near 80%.
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Harare - President Robert Mugabe has signed a new law requiring foreign-and white-owned businesses in Zimbabwe to hand over 51 per cent control of their operations to blacks. The new law is part of Mugabe's election campaign strategy of what he calls
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Over the weekend Robert Mugabe signed into law legislation that requires foreign and white-owned businesses in Zimbabwe to hand over 51 percent control of their shares to blacks. This Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act was approved by parliament back in September, 2007. Mugabe waited until now, just 3 weeks before an election, to sign it into law.
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Robert Mugabe