Mugabe says Blair is biased and can 'Go to hell'

Robert Mugabe said yesterday that Tony Blair could "go to hell" as the Commonwealth prepared to shy away once more from suspending Zimbabwe despite evidence that Robert Mugabe's regime has violated its principles.

Mr Mugabe, quoted in yesterday's official The Herald newspaper, told a rally in Guruve in northern Zimbabwe on Thursday that Britain's Prime Minister had shown bias towards the opposition in next week's presidential election.

"Blair stood in Parliament unashamedly to say the British government should stay ready to recognise and support the victory of MDC and should not stay ready to recognise the victory of Zanu-PF," Mr Mugabe was quoted as saying. "But of course we say: Go to hell.Our people have decided and that is what matters to us. It's not the right or responsibility of the British to decide on our elections. We don't decide on their own and why should they poke their pink noses in our business?"

The election hopes of the challenger, Morgan Tsvangirai,suffered a blow when the Supreme Court ruled that voters may vote only in their constituencies. The ruling could in effect disenfranchise thousands of supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change, the opposition party, who have been displaced from their rural constituencies by marauding Zanu-PF militias.

Ruling party militants hurled burning tyres and blocked approaches to an MDC rally yesterday, forcing it to be cancelled.

Commonwealth leaders meeting in Queensland, Australia, will consider a report today by their policy-making body, the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, which is understood to recommend that punitive action against Zimbabwe be deferred until after the presidential election.