Zimbabwe's state-controlled media Wednesday went into action against new presidential candidate Simba Makoni, a former cabinet minister and senior ruling party official, dismissing his ambition as "a loud fart."They also denounced the former finance minister and respected businessman as having being planted in the election by Western governments to overthrow President Robert Mugabe and install a regime of "Western puppets."Makoni (57), who was in Mugabe's first cabinet at independence in 1980, on Tuesday blamed the 83-year-old's "failed leadership" for the catastrophic collapse of the once-prosperous nation's economy.
Zimbabwe is characterized by world record inflation that has pushed the cost of a banana to over a million Zimbabwe dollars, crippling power and water cuts, dysfunctional hospitals, a dangerously potholed road network after decades of neglect, and famine.
Makoni announced his candidacy Tuesday and declared he would stand as an independent candidate in presidential, parliamentary and local government elections on March 29, promising, if elected, he would "work with elected MPs."
He said he would elaborate further when he announced his election platform. State radio reacted within hours of his announcement on Tuesday, reporting that he had joined the presidential contest but adding that the presence at his press conference of officials of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and of the British and US embassies "raised suspicions of a hidden hand."
Then Wednesday in the state-run Harare-based daily Herald newspaper, a senior columnist scorned descriptions of Makoni's announcement as "a bombshell" and said it was more like "the loud fart all silently agree never happened.""He has been sent to do someone's dirty work," the paper said. "It all shows there is a hand calling the shots."
Since the emergence seven years ago of the MDC, Mugabe's state media relentlessly characterized the party as a "puppet" of the British and US governments. Every reference to the party's founding leader, former trade unionist Morgan Tsvangirai, is followed by charges that he is given orders directly from London and Washington, using him to bring down Mugabe's regime so that Britain and the US can recolonize the former British possession which gained independence in 1980.