By Redley Mugabe| The British government has been accused of assisting Emmrson Mnangagwa to win the upcoming elections.

ZAPU leader Dumiso Dabengwa made these comments in Harare as he bemoaned how his party lost the 1980 polls to ZANU PF as Britain allegedly ignored calls to attend to electoral violations.

His comments come as the UK envoy Catriona Laing dismissed the long-running allegations.

Last year she insisted that “no UK taxpayer’s money has been or will be used to fund the Zanu PF government unless they uphold the rule of law and human rights.”

But Dabengwa not mentioning the issue of funding, reflects on events going back to the 1980 polls saying his party “Zapu could have won more seats in maiden elections but Zanu PF created no go areas and that has been the party’s culture (of violence) since 1980.

“No other party would go to those areas and campaign freely and it has been like that up to today and some of us who have been in politics are not surprised by the deployment of the army ahead of this year’s election.

“We could have done the same in the southern parts of the country where most Zipra liberation fighters operated during the war but the late Joshua Nkomo discouraged us.

“We raised the issue with the British delegation led by Lord Soames and he just promised to look into the issue but nothing changed.”

On this Dabengwa says, “this may be the same this year; the British are so much involved in the upcoming elections and they will ignore any calls by the opposition for free and fair elections because they want to reward Emmerson Mnangagwa and protect their interests.”

He alleges that UK sees Zimbabwe as their baby. “Britain sees Zimbabwe as their baby and even in 1980 they made sure that Zanu PF won the elections and see their shift towards Zanu PF since the departure of Mugabe,” he says.