Mugabe march of a million falls 990,000 short

dpa:

A bid by President Robert Mugabe to draw a vast crowd of Zimbabweans to demonstrate massive support for him and cow his opponents fell well below expectations Friday as most people chose to attend to their crisis-stricken lives.

The 'million man and woman march,' planned by Mugabe's ruling ZANU(PF) party for over a month, was meant to equal the throng of an estimated 200,000 people that gathered in Harare's Highfield township to welcome him home in 1980 at the end of a 7-year civil war for black majority rule and just before independence.

Copied from the 'million man march' organized in 1995 by Louis Farrakhan, leader of the black American militant 'Nation of Islam' movement in Washington DC, the Zimbabwean version, held at the same venue as Mugabe's heroic 1980 return, managed to collect about 10,000 people, journalists present agreed.

Veterans present in Harare in 1980 said Friday's rally came nowhere near Mugabe's return 27 years ago. 'There was a sea of people as far as the eye could see,' one said.

The numbers were also probably less than opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai could attract, without trains or buses and usually despite a hostile and often violent police presence.

'I think there were probably more people queuing for cash at the banks,' a bystander said, referring to the critical shortage of cash available, one of the array of severe difficulties facing ordinary Zimbabweans struggling under world-record inflation in the world's fastest shrinking economy.

Mugabe, held responsible for the economic meltdown, appeared in a red baseball cap and a green African print shirt with his own picture on the front. He spoke for over two hours, delivering a wandering, repetitive history of his party's 'revolutionary' background.

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It is a good thing he is not a narcissist. How many normal people wear a shirt with a picture of them self on it? Apparently he went to an enormous effort to draw a crowd and failed. He should have had his thugs round up folks at the bank or standing in line for meager food supplies. I still think Keith Olbermann should be required to meet Mugabe before he hands out any more worst person in the world awards.