Zimbabwe: Mugabe wants senate election on November 26

Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, has fixed a November 26 date for elections to a new house of parliament criticised by the main opposition, state television reported October 12. Mugabe had already said the election would take place late next month. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which since 2000 has posed the biggest challenge to Mugabe's quarter-century rule, has not yet decided whether it will contest the Senate elections. The MDC has said the Senate is designed to accommodate Mugabe's supporters, and the party, like many Western governments, accuses Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF of rigging elections over the past five years. Mugabe used Zanu-PF's two-thirds majority in parliament to push through constitutional amendments in August, including provision for the Senate. Fifty members of the 66-seat Senate will be elected and the remainder appointed.