Conger

Zimbabwe has become a “nation of political victims” the Bishop of Harare said in a pastoral letter released ahead of the March 29 General Elections.

Bishop Sebastian Bakare wrote that in Zimbabwe “the poor are getting poorer not by the day but by the minute and they cannot afford the soaring prices of daily essentials.”

Running under the banner of “Chinja”—‘change’ in the Shona language, - the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by Morgan Tsvangirai is ahead in the polls 28.3 percent to President Mugabe’s 20.3 percent with former finance minister Simba Makoni running a close third.

However, most observers predict a Mugabe victory fueled by voter intimidation and fraud. The army has said it will not recognize any winner but Robert Mugabe, while Human Rights Watch has accused the government of using violence to intimidate opponents and using state subsidised food to buy votes.

On Saturday, President Mugabe told a rally the MDC were tools of British colonialists. “It is treasonous for the MDC to continue to help the British so that they have any influence here,” he told supporters in Harare.

The MDC “still look up to the British in this day and age. They want to rule this country. That will not happen as long as we are still alive, those of us who fought the liberation struggle,” he said.

Zimbabwe’s economy is near collapse. Inflation is currently running 100,580 percent and shopkeepers no longer accept cheques or credit cards for purchases as the time it takes to process the transaction wipes out any profit they may have had. A loaf of bread in Harare costs Z$15 million, approximately two weeks wages for a farm worker.

Bishop Bakare denounced profiteers and the political cronies of 84 year old strongman Robert Mugabe as the “few who manipulate the situation to their profit. They hold on fast to what they have.”

“For such a people a changed future is most unwelcome,” he wrote last week.