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 Satan". George Shire expressed the view that there was "a strong racist animus" against Mugabe within Zimbabwe, and that this had typically been overlooked by Western media representations of the country. Mugabe has himself been accused of racism; John Sentamu, the Uganda-born Archbishop of York in the United Kingdom, called Mugabe "the worst kind of racist dictator", for having "targeted the whites for their apparent riches". They have been denounced as racist against Zimbabwe's white minority. Desmond Tutu stated that Mugabe became "increasingly insecure, he's hitting out. One just wants to weep. It's very sad." South African President Nelson Mandela