By MacDonald Dzirutwe
HARARE (Reuters) - President Robert Mugabe should retirebefore he faces defeat in elections next month, an aide to arival whom the Zimbabwean leader branded a "prostitute" said onFriday.
Mugabe hurled the insult at former finance minister SimbaMakoni on Thursday in a television interview and vowed tohumiliate the opposition in the March 29 general elections.
Makoni, expelled from Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF last week,has emerged as the most serious political challenger to Mugabein two decades, at a time when the veteran leader is strugglingto convince Zimbabweans he can ease their economic hardships.
Ibbo Mandaza, a senior member of Makoni's campaign team,dismissed Mugabe's remarks as the rumblings of someone in powerfor far too long.
"Are you surprised by that? What we hope for is that theold man will have a nice retirement with his family because weare going to win this election," Mandaza told Reuters.
"We are not about recrimination. We are looking at thepost- election period where we will give him the kind ofrespect and security that a founding father of this nationdeserves."
Mugabe will attend an elaborate celebration of his 84thbirthday and launch his election campaign in the southernborder town of Beitbridge on Saturday.
The Western world sees Mugabe as a ruthless dictator, butregional African leaders look up to him as a liberation herowho still takes on the United States and former coloniserBritain.
Unlike Mugabe, Makoni has said he wants to restore tieswith Western donors to rescue the economy, and analysts say hemay have a much better chance at the elections than the dividedmain opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Makoni, Mugabe and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai will standin the March 29 presidential, parliamentary and council polls.
Mugabe has tried to deflect attention from Zimbabwe'seconomic meltdown by accusing the MDC of working with Westernfoes to oust him and destabilise the country, analysts say.
Opponents hope the world's highest inflation rate, over100,000 percent, and shortages of basic goods will weakenMugabe,but security crackdowns have tightened his grip onpower.
In South Africa the two MDC factions repeated on Thursdaythat they did not expect a fair election process.
"In these circumstances we hold the firm view that the 2008elections, which are being held under the same conditions asprevious disputed elections, cannot by any stretch of theimagination yield a legitimate outcome," Tendai Biti andWelshman Ncube, senior officials from the two MDC factions,said in a statement in Johannesburg.
"We spent hours on our computers, hours researching, hoursquarrelling, hours arguing ... and because we put so much intoit, obviously as human beings we feel betrayed, we feel letdown by the process."
(Additional reporting by Muchena Zigomo in Johannesburg,Editing by Michael Georgy and Tim Pearce)
