SOUTH AFRICA:Simba Makoni, one of President Robert Mugabe's main challengers in next month's Zimbabwean election, has said he will ensure the dictator has a safe haven if he loses the presidential race.
Despite accusations of crimes against humanity levelled against 84-year-old Mr Mugabe, Mr Makoni said if he were to win the election, then "space" would be made for the country's long-time president to live out his days without fear of prosecution.
Among other alleged gross human rights violations, President Mugabe reportedly sanctioned the death of more than 20,000 of southern Zimbabwe's minority Ndebele tribe in the mid-1980s as a means to quell internal opposition.
Speaking to the BBC, Mr Makoni, who until recently was a senior member of Mr Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party, predicted he would secure a "landslide victory" in next month's election because many Zimbabweans share the "vision, the views, the proposition that I'm offering".
The former finance minister is seen as a realistic challenger to Mr Mugabe because he is viewed as a moderate and has the backing of other senior party members.
Whether Mr Mugabe would accept an offer of immunity rather than try to retain power by whatever means possible is still unclear, as it has been said he fears the fate that befell former Liberian president Charles Taylor. Mr Taylor, one of west Africa's most prominent warlords during the region's instability of the 1990s and early 2000s, was initially granted safe exile in Nigeria as part of a 2003 peace deal.
However, his immunity was scrapped in 2006 and he is currently before the International Criminal Court at The Hague facing charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity that relate to the conflict in Sierra Leone where he allegedly backed rebels responsible for widespread atrocities.
Mr Makoni's offer of immunity to Mr Mugabe is likely to disappoint many ordinary Zimbabweans who want their current leader to be put in trial.
Meanwhile, Nelson Chamisa, a spokesman for Zimbabwe's main opposition the Movement for Democratic Change, has said the party had developed a strategy "to incapacitate" Mr Mugabe's government if another disputed election arose.
Mr Mugabe has been accused by international election monitors of stealing the country's last two presidential and parliamentary elections through violence, intimidation and rigged vote counting.
"This time the courts are out of question, they are out of the picture. The MDC has a strategy that has been tested and used elsewhere, but untried in Zimbabwe," he said.
The plan will be rolled out at the appropriate time, but we will not release the details yet," Mr Chamisa told The Irish Times.