7 - 13 June 2001
Issue No.537
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 7 - 13 June 2001 Issue No.537 |
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Blair's gain
MORE bad news for Britain's Conservative party. A poll, which was carried out between 29 May and 3 June, shows Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour party now narrowly leads as the party that "will best protect Britain's interests in the European Union." The Conservatives have made their skeptical attitude to Europe a core of their election campaign. Over 80 per cent of potential voters questioned felt that Britain will adopt the single European currency in the next 10 years. Nevertheless, the population is deeply divided on whether or not they personally favour euro membership. Britain is in the final week of a general election which will take place on 7 June.Mugabe's loss
ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe was dealt a severe political blow with the death of the militant war veterans' leader, Chenjerai Hunzvi. Mugabe said that Hunzvi was "a pivotal player in the country's land reform programme." Hunzvi, who was one of the main supporters of Mugabe's policy of appropriating white-owned land, died on Monday after collapsing last month in Zimbabwe's second largest city, Bulawayo.Hunzvi spearheaded the invasion of white-owned farms last year. "[Hunzvi's] leadership was particularly inspiring in that it came at a historic time, when some people were beginning to waver, viewing our war veterans as objects of contempt and ridicule," Mugabe said in a widely-publicised tribute to the war veteran leader. "Predictably, comrade Hunzvi was demonised and disparaged by a hostile and vicious local and international campaign that sought, as it still does, to preserve the iniquitous colonial land ownership imbalance in Zimbabwe."
Hunzvi was the third of Mugabe's closest political associates to die in the past two months, fuelling speculation about a conspiracy to weaken Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF by opposition party Movement for Democratic Change. Zimbabwean Defence Minister Moven Mahachi and Employment Minister Border Gezi both died in separate car accidents. Zimbabwe's health minister, Timothy Stamps, said that Hunzvi had died of complications arising from malaria despite being in the care of three specialists.
Toledo's triumph
THE HARVARD University-trained former World Bank economist, Alejandro Toledo, won Peru's presidential election, following a campaign marred by bitter personal attacks. Toledo's rival, former president Alan Garcia, accused Toledo of fathering a child out of wedlock. Toledo hit back by criticising Garcia's "deplorable" human rights record.The 55-year-old Toledo, in a real life rags-to-riches story, was one of 16 children born to a poor indigenous Indian family in the Andean Mountain region. Toledo survived as a shoeshine boy and now poses as a champion of the poor and of Peru's indigenous Indian population, stressing the hardships he himself has suffered. He pledged to improve their woeful economic and social conditions and pull Peru out of its economic crisis.
Toledo's victory was welcomed by Japan, where former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori fled after a corruption scandal last year. But Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said that Tokyo would not extradite Fujimori.
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