Mugabe belittles opponents as frog and puppet

By Cris Chinaka

BEITBRIDGE, Zimbabwe (Reuters) - President Robert Mugabe dismissed his two challengers in next month's Zimbabwean elections as a lightweight and a Western puppet on Saturday.

In a rally to mark his 84th birthday and launch his campaign for another five-year term, Mugabe said his ruling ZANU-PF party would win the March 29 votes resoundingly.

Former Finance Minister Simba Makoni, who says he has the support of a number of ZANU-PF officials, is standing against Mugabe in the presidential contest.

"He is like a frog trying to inflate itself up to the size of an ox. It will burst," Mugabe told thousands of party activists in a dusty sports field in Beitbridge on the South African border.

Mugabe also lashed out at Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the largest faction of Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), describing him as a "puppet" of former colonial power Britain and the United States.

Mugabe's government has accused the two Western nations and their allies of using sanctions to undermine and sabotage Zimbabwe's economy, which is in crisis with inflation of more than 100,000 percent, unemployment at more than 80 percent, and chronic food and fuel shortages.

"It is the sanctions that they have imposed which have caused a great deal of harm on the economy," Mugabe said. He expected he and his party would win "resoundingly" in the presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections.

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