Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Friday said his party could roll out protests against President Robert Mugabe’s government over its inability to improve a flagging economy.<\/p>\n
Tsvangirai has led the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) since 1999 and in April he sacked his secretary general who was calling for him to step down after losing a third election to Mugabe in 2013, which some Western observers said was rigged.<\/p>\n
Tsvangirai, a former trade union leader, said the country had an unsustainably high unemployment rate, estimated above 80 percent, which forced many people into informal employment.<\/p>\n
After posting strong growth during four years of Mugabe and Tsvangirai’s unity government between 2009-2013, the economy is suffering a dollar crunch due to lack of foreign investment, forcing many firms to shut down or keep workers without pay.<\/p>\n
“We are going to mobilise. The form and content is left to the MDC to plan and execute,” Tsvangirai told journalists.<\/p>\n
A senior MDC official told Reuters mass protests were “very much an option”.<\/p>\n
Previous anti-Mugabe protests, the last one in 2007, have been met by a heavy police and military resistance, but Tsvangirai said the veteran leader would be making a mistake by setting security forces against the public.<\/p>\n
“Let him be warned that if we cannot live as free men and women in our country of birth, we will rather die as free people,” said Tsvangirai.<\/p>\n
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