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Zimbabwe's rich do not want "change": Anglican bishop
Monsters and Critics
March 19, 2008

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/africa/news/article_1396111.php

Harare/Johannesburg - Zimbabwe's select few rich are 'capitalizing' on the country's economic crisis and do not want this months elections to bring change, the Anglican bishop of Harare charged Wednesday.

Writing in a pastoral letter ahead of the March 29 national polls, Bishop Sebastian Bakare said Zimbabwe had become 'a nation of political victims.'

'Here the poor are getting poorer not by the day but by the minute and they cannot afford the soaring prices of daily essentials,' Bakare said.

Zimbabwe is mired in its worst-ever economic crisis with inflation now well beyond 100,000 per cent, frequent price hikes and shortages of basic commodities.

President Robert Mugabe blames Western sanctions for the troubles and says price hikes are an attempt to 'demoralize' voters ahead of polling day.

The 84-year-old president faces two strong contenders in the poll: Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and ex- finance minister Simba Makoni.

Bakare, who is locked in a bitter battle with his predecessor, the pro-Mugabe bishop Nolbert Kunonga, castigated 'the few who manipulate the situation to their own profit.'

'For such a people a changed future is most unwelcome,' he said. Change is the slogan of the MDC. Makoni is also advocating for a change in leadership.

Bishop Bakare was only recently consecrated after regional church authorities declared Kunonga had severed himself from the church. Kunonga, who has been given a farm by Mugabe, has reportedly set up camp in church precincts and is refusing to hand over other church property. He has been actively campaigning for Mugabe, saying the president is 'a prophet of God.'

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