LONDON (AFP) — Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is "self-destructing" and will ultimately fail even though he will claim an election victory, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai told BBC radio Thursday.
"It's now very clear that this man is self-destructing," he said, adding that whatever happens after the elections "I will be here and I'll be watching Mugabe destroy himself."
"He has run a one-man show; he wants to run a one-man race. All things that are flying in the face of internationality and logic," Tsvangirai said, referring to the planned run-off poll Friday from which he has withdrawn, saying violence against his supporters made a fair vote impossible.
Speaking to BBC World Service radio from Harare, he forecast that voters would be forced to the polls in the one-man presidential election second round.
"There will be massive frog-marching of the people to the polling stations by force," he said.
"There could be a massive turnout, not because of the will of the people but because of the role of the military and the traditional leaders to force people to these polls."
He added: "They (Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party) lost the election in March and what they're going to do is to say to the world that we were voted in on Saturday by the people.
"Mugabe will be sworn in as president and go around saying, 'I am the legitimate leader' and yet of course the whole world has condemned it."
"Even if he gets 90 percent it's not different from Saddam Hussein, 99.9 percent of forced voting. What difference will that make?" he added.
Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), topped the first round presidential poll in March.
International condemnation of Mugabe has grown in recent days, including from former South African president Nelson Mandela who on Wednesday lamented the "tragic failure of leadership" in Zimbabwe.
The MDC leader meanwhile denied that he had called for a military intervention, distancing himself from a comment piece in his name published by British newspaper The Guardian this week.
"I've never called for military intervention. I find violence abhorrent and I don't believe it is a solution," he said, warning: "That would take us back to the 15 years of anti-colonial struggle."
Tsvangirai added that after Mugabe's departure he would agree to an amnesty for the leadership of his ZANU-PF party and share power on the basis of the first-round polls which gave him 47.9 percent against Mugabe's 43.2 percent.
"The question of how to treat President Mugabe and his cohorts is to say 'look if you agree to a negotiated solution, then you may buy your security in an amnesty within that process'," he said.
Asked what inspired him to carry on, he said it was the spirit of ordinary Zimbabweans. "That spirit cannot be extinguished by Mugabe's dictatorship," he said.
"It will prevail over this evil and that is what inspires me to continue."
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