President Robert Mugabe started his re-election campaign yesterday saying Zimbabwe's former white rulers backed his main opposition party rival, who was briefly detained by police.
Police said they detained Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), at around 4.30 a.m. and held him at Harare central police station after finding a two-way radio during a search of his home. He was released about 35 minutes later, police said.
"He was not arrested. He was merely called in connection with the security radio which requires a licence," a police spokesman, Mr Wayne Bvudzijena, said.
"We had him for about 35 minutes and then released him after advising him that he remains obliged to produce the licence." The MDC said in a statement the incident was part of an intimidation campaign against their leader, who poses the strongest electoral challenge to Mr Mugabe after 21 years in power.
"All these incidents are part of ZANU-PF's campaign strategy ... They are carefully designed to ... throw his programme off course and get him to think about his plight and not that of the people," the MDC said.
Mr Mugabe, launching his campaign for a March vote, urged his ZANU-PF party to unite and defeat a surging MDC, which nearly defeated the ruling party in parliamentary elections last year.
Looking tired during most of his hour-long speech to party supporters at a congress in the resort city of Victoria Falls, Mr Mugabe (77) vowed to stick to his controversial land drive and to champion the interests of Zimbabwe's black majority.
"We will win. We cannot lose the fight for our land. Never, never, never. In my heart, I will not have succeeded in liberating the people of Zimbabwe from oppression as long as economic oppression continues," he told 7,000 delegates. He repeated charges that Mr Tsvangirai's party was a puppet of his white opponents out to topple him over the land programme. On Thursday, Mr Mugabe called the MDC a "terrorist" group with no viable political platform.