Campaigning for the 2008 Zimbabwean presidential election Campaigning for the 2008 Zimbabwean presidential election Campaigning for the first round of the presidential election held in Zimbabwe on 29 March 2008 took place from February to March. There were three major candidates: President Robert Mugabe of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), Morgan Tsvangirai of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC, Tsvangirai faction), and the independent candidate Simba Makoni. Mugabe declared on 12 February that he was "raring to go and raring to fly". Speaking at a rally in Beitbridge on 23 February, he likened Makoni to "a frog trying to inflate itself
Zimbabwe humanity to bring Mugabe to trial in front of the International Criminal Court. Male homosexuality is illegal in Zimbabwe. Since 1995, the government has carried out campaigns against both homosexual men and women. President Mugabe has blamed gays for many of Zimbabwe's problems and viewed homosexuality as an "un-African" and immoral culture brought by European colonists and practiced by only "a few whites" in his country. Opposition gatherings are frequently the subject of brutal attacks by the police force, such as the crackdown on an 11 March 2007 Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) rally and several others during the 2008