Parliamentary elections in March – Mugabe

President Robert Mugabe has underlined that Zimbabwe’s parliamentary elections are still on schedule for March and that the government has not taken a decision to postpone them. His announcement to state media on Tuesday night followed remarks last December by Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa that the elections had been postponed to June so they could be run under a new constitution - which is still in draft form and still has to be approved by Zimbabweans in an upcoming referendum - and with a new voters role. Mugabe said the polls would be delayed only if absolutely necessary and, at the latest, only to the first week of April, news reports said. Although analysts predict Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF should win handsomely, it faces a stiff challenge from a new unions-backed Movement for Democratic Change that has focussed on the deterioration in living standards over two decades of virtual single-party rule. “The ruling party will be returned to power but they will be confronted by a real opposition for the first time,” economist Eric Block told IRIN on Wednesday. “If that occurs it will have a positive repercussions for business confidence.”