Campaigning for the 2008 Zimbabwean presidential election British, who he described as the puppeteers of Tsvangirai and Makoni. 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
Robert Mugabe during the Lancaster House negotiations, "of course he didn't actually practice what he preached, did he? Once in office he became a capitalist". Mugabe has stated that "socialism has to be much more Christian than capitalism". The Zimbabwean scholar George Shire described Mugabe's policies as being "broadly-speaking" social-democratic. During the 1980s, Mugabe indicated his desire to transform Zimbabwe from a multi-party state into a one-party state. In 1984 he stated that "the one-party state is more in keeping with African tradition. It makes for greater unity for the people. It puts all opinions under one umbrella, whether these opinions are