May 16, 2008, 13:15 GMT
Belfast/Johannesburg - Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was Friday preparing to return 'almost immediately' to his troubled home country which he left over a month ago, officials accompanying him on a visit to Northern Ireland said.
Speaking at a conference in Belfast organized by Liberal International, an alliance of liberal parties from around the world, Tsvangirai said: 'I must return to Zimbabwe to be with our people and to lift them out of the darkness.'
His officials confirmed that the 56-year-old leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was leaving for Zimbabwe 'almost immediately.'
Earlier, his spokesman George Sibotshiwe, who accompanied Tsvangirai to Belfast, said about the plans to go home: 'Yes, we're still going, either Saturday evening or Sunday morning.'
On Sunday, Tsvangirai would address the MDC's parliamentary caucus in Harare before later travelling to Bulawayo for a party rally, Sibotshiwe said.
Tsvangirai left Zimbabwe over a month ago amid fears for his safety in the wake of his party's defeat of President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party in the March 29 elections.
In the presidential poll Tsvangirai took 47.9 per cent of votes to Mugabe's 43.2 per cent, below the 50-per-cent-plus threshold for an outright victory.
Tsvangirai's move coincided Friday with an announcement by the Electoral Commission in Zimbabwe that June 27 had been set as a date for the presidential run-off.
The MDC leader confirmed that his party would take part in the poll, but said the date chosen 'was not on the basis of law.'
He said the only date for a run-off that would be in line with the constitution would have been May 23.
The rulers of Zimbabwe were 'changing the goalposts to suit themselves,' Tsvangirai said about the end of June date announced Friday.
Tsvangirai said in Belfast Friday he was totally confident that he would win again.
'On the 29th of March the people of Zimbabwe voted. Mugabe lost that first round, 57 per cent of the people who cast their vote did not vote for him,' Tsvangirai told a news conference.
'I am so confident that in spite of the violence, come the second round they will reconfirm that rejection.'
Tsvangirai held out the prospect of an amnesty against prosecution for past crime for Mugabe if he agreed to negotiate 'an honourable exit.'
'I am sure it is a price we all have to pay - a cheaper price than continuing with the conflict,' said the MDC leader.
He insisted he had not been hiding outside the country since the poll but used the time to seek support from fellow-African leaders.
At the Belfast conference, Tsvangirai had talks with President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, who flanked him at the news conference and joined in the call for Mugabe to 'accept the verdict of the second round vote.'
'I did not run away. I am not in exile. It was for strategic reasons. We had to engage with all the African leaders about the crisis,' said Tsvangirai.
He shrugged off any threat to his life that may accompany his return.
'Zimbabweans are already facing a very risky environment. I am not a special person, so I am just as at risk as the next Zimbabwean who is confronting the regime - I am as vulnerable as the next person,' he said.
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