{{Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe is ready to cede power if elections planned for the troubled African nation do not go his way, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has said.}}<\/p>\n
Tsvangirai says he did not believe Mugabe, who disputed election results in 2008 and eventually retained the presidency under a power-sharing deal, would risk another round of violence in Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n
He said 88-year-old Mugabe, who has led the country since independence in 1980, wanted to protect his legacy and would abide by the result of a ballot scheduled to be held within the next 12 months.<\/p>\n
“I’m sure he will accept the result,” Tsvangirai told reporters during an official trip to New Zealand.<\/p>\n
“I do not see any reason why he should plunge the country again into another dispute.<\/p>\n
“I think he’s committed, for his own legacy and the legacy of the country, to move forward and he has to accept the result if it is conducted in a free and fair manner.”<\/p>\n
Tsvangirai confirmed he would stand against his arch-rival Mugabe in the election, which is set to be held under a new constitution, a draft of which was finalised on Friday.<\/p>\n
He described the draft constitution as a “progressive step” which he hoped would help Zimbabwe emerge from decades of violence and instability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe is ready to cede power if elections planned for the troubled African nation do not go his way, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has said.}} Tsvangirai says he did not believe Mugabe, who disputed election results in 2008 and eventually retained the presidency under a power-sharing deal, would risk another round of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[75],"byline":[334],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-2783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-homenews","byline-igihe-reporter"],"bylines":[{"id":334,"name":"IGIHE Reporter","slug":"igihe-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":334,"name":"IGIHE Reporter","slug":"igihe-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2783"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=2783"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=2783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}