[originaltext] President Robert Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe with an iron fi

President Robert Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe with an iron fist for nearly three decades, faces his toughest challenge yet in this weekend’s general elections. Voters go to the polls Saturday in simultaneous presidential, parliamentary, senate and council elections. Mugabe faces three opposition candidates, two of whom have a good chance of winning. Zimbabweans are the poorest they have ever been since the nation became a democracy.Unemployment is estimated at around 80 percent, inflation is more than 100,000 percent, and hundreds of thousands are fleeing the country to earn more elsewhere than they would back home. Mugabe has been in office since the country, then called Rhodesia, gained independence from Britain in 1980. He was once respected as a liberation hero, but observers now criticize him for repressive tactics and corruption, and blame him for the country’s dire economic state. In what critics labeled a vote-buying exercise, Mugabe recently increased the salaries of the police, army and teachers and also handed out machinery to black farmers. Zimbabwean officials deny the moves had anything to do with the election.