Mugabe vows to pursue challenger

Challenger Tsvangirai is facing trial for treason after the voting

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- Just over two days before Zimbabwe's controversial presidential election, Robert Mugabe warned he would pursue his challenger once the voting was over.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been charged with treason over a secretly recorded video showing him discussing Mugabe's "elimination" with Canadian lobbyists who turned out to be working for Mugabe.

This was alleged by Zimbabwean government officials to be evidence of an assassination plot.

"No murderer will go unpunished. No one we know to have planned such deeds will escape," said Mugabe, promising post-election retribution against those he said had committed crimes against Zimbabwe, though he mentioned no names.

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"We'll see this issue to its conclusions once this election is out of the way," he said at a rally in comments carried by state-owned television late on Wednesday.

Zimbabweans vote for a president on Saturday and Sunday after the most bitter and closely fought campaign in 22 years of independence under Mugabe.

A private Zimbabwean newspaper reported on Thursday that Mugabe's government had placed the army on high alert, recalled soldiers from leave and ordered those who live outside military barracks to stay home, ready to deal with possible trouble after the March 9-10 voting.

The weekly Financial Gazette also said the government had withdrawn some troops from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to beef up security and repeated remarks made by one Mugabe's senior officials early this week that the ruling ZANU-PF party would support a military coup if Mugabe lost power.

Both Britain and the U.S. stepped up their attacks on Mugabe as the polls drew closer.

If the opposition did win, British Prime Minister Tony Blair told parliament, Mugabe "must accept the result and hand over power."

"The violence and intimidation unleashed by President Mugabe in his desperation to prevent an opposition victory... is totally unacceptable," Blair said.

"And there is no doubt about those abuses. Those who are witnessing the campaign and who are still in Zimbabwe, detail horrific acts of violence and intimidation."

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell meanwhile said Mugabe was "an anachronism in the way he's going about the running of his country."

"This kind of behaviour, this kind of political act... is no longer acceptable if countries wanted to progress into the 21st century," he said.

In his address to the public, Mugabe accused Tsvangirai, the head of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), of being a stooge of Britain and the country's white minority which waged a bush war to hold on to power in the 1970s.

"You suffered for this country while the Tsvangirais fled the war... Now he is licking the white man's boots," Mugabe said.

The leader of the ZANU-PF party told a rally in Mutare in eastern Zimbabwe that local whites and Britain were eager to get rid of all former liberation movements in Africa.

"If ZANU-PF is removed from power now, they will proceed to Frelimo, to ANC and then to Swapo," Mugabe said, referring to the guerrilla movements turned ruling parties of neighbouring Mozambique, South Africa and Namibia.

Mugabe; Says oppnent Tsvangirai is a "British stooge"

The state body appointed to run the vote, the Election Directorate, was due to release details on Thursday on the location of polling stations, state-run television also reported. Vote counting would begin on March 11, it said.

There was criticism by overseas election monitors after election officials failed to answer questions at a briefing on Wednesday about the location of polling stations and how many ballot papers had been printed.

CNN's Jef Koinange said one of the major problems now in Zimbabwe was "election fatigue" with many voters tied of the beatings and intimidation which have characterised recent months.

The MDC and foreign critics, led by former colonial power Britain and the United States, accuse Mugabe, 78, of trying to rig the vote.

Koinange said the result was still expected to be close with the result likely to depend on voter turnout.

It would require a big majority against Mugabe to persuade him that the people of Zimbabwe no longer wanted him, Kolinage added.

White dual-nationality voters who have been disqualified from voting are also expected to return to court on Thursday seeking the right to vote in the election.