{"id":10058,"date":"2012-04-19T04:21:02","date_gmt":"2012-04-19T02:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/04\/mugabe-urges-peace-ahead-of-zimbabwe-elections\/"},"modified":"2012-04-19T04:21:02","modified_gmt":"2012-04-19T02:21:02","slug":"mugabe-urges-peace-ahead-of-zimbabwe-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/mugabe-urges-peace-ahead-of-zimbabwe-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Mugabe urges peace ahead of Zimbabwe elections"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Mugabe calls for peace as violence rises ahead of polls<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Mugabe says empowerment policy to uplift poor majority<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Cris Chinaka<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>HARARE, April 18 (Reuters) &#8211; Zimbabwe President Robert<br \/>\nMugabe on Wednesday urged political parties to ensure a looming<br \/>\ngeneral election is peaceful, amid a rise in violence that he<br \/>\nblamed on ambitious politicians staking claims as candidates.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s very sad that we are seeing ugly fights in<br \/>\nconstituencies sponsored by sitting members of parliament and<br \/>\npotential candidates,&#8221; he said at a rally to mark 32 years of<br \/>\nindependence from Britain.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Critics and opponents say Mugabe hung on to power in a 2008<br \/>\nelection by rigging polls and allowing independence war veterans<br \/>\nand the youth brigade of his ruling ZANU-PF to attack opposition<br \/>\ncandidates.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Addressing the rally, Mugabe, 88 years old and Zimbabwe&#8217;s<br \/>\nruler since independence, also said ZANU-PF would not back down<br \/>\nfrom a highly criticised drive to force foreign firms to<br \/>\nsurrender majority stakes to locals.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The empowerment plan was meant to correct colonial<br \/>\ninjustices, he said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Mugabe calls for peace as violence rises ahead of polls * Mugabe says empowerment policy to uplift poor majority By Cris Chinaka HARARE, April 18 (Reuters) &#8211; Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe on Wednesday urged political parties to ensure a looming general election is peaceful, amid a rise in violence that he blamed on ambitious [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-10058","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10058\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}