{{Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe left for a medical check-up in Singapore on Tuesday, his spokesman said, a month before an election in which the 89-year-old is looking to extend his 33 years in power.}}<\/p>\n
Africa’s oldest leader – who denies reports he has received treatment for prostate cancer – will return at the weekend after a routine visit to an eye specialist, his spokesman George Charamba said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Mugabe has said he has cataracts but no other major health problems and regularly dismisses media allegations that his condition is deteriorating as wishful thinking by his enemies.<\/p>\n
He has often gone to Singapore for check-ups and passed through the southeast Asian city state during a trip to Japan three weeks ago.<\/p>\n
Mugabe’s main political rival, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, has called for a delay of at least two weeks to the vote, currently scheduled for July 31.<\/p>\n
Tsvangirai has appealed to the 15-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) to prod Mugabe into delaying the poll to allow media and security reforms designed to prevent a repeat of the bloodshed that marred a 2008 vote.<\/p>\n
The government has asked the Constitutional Court to move the date and a ruling is expected by the end of the week.<\/p>\n
Mugabe accuses his political rivals of seeking to delay elections because they fear defeat, a charge dismissed by Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).<\/p>\n
The MDC says reforms to restrictive media and security laws are essential for a credible vote, and accuses Mugabe of using violence to win previous elections.<\/p>\n
Besides the quarrel over reforms and the election date, Finance Minister Tendai Biti from Tsvangirai’s party also says the southern African state does not yet have the $132 million needed to fund the election.<\/p>\n
Mugabe has been in power since independence from Britain in 1980.<\/p>\n
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