'He said we must undermine the government of Zanu-PF and create an opposition for them.' Tony Blair was 'a real liar, downright one,' he declared. The crowd was a sea of Zanu-PF green and yellow, chanting, punching the air and waving placards that said: 'Man of the people.' Mugabe belied his years and barely broke sweat as he framed the election as an epic struggle against imperialism, railing against Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) as a British invention. His wife Grace wore similar party regalia, but her dress bore two large portraits of the president. Sporting a white Zanu-PF baseball cap, dark glasses and vividly patterned jacket over a pinstripe shirt, Mugabe leaned on a lectern and spoke without a break from noon on Saturday at a pre-election rally in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city. Running for election for the seventh time, he is widely tipped to beat his rival Morgan Tsvangirai in Wednesday's poll – and to be ushered back into respectability by a pragmatic west. Africa's oldest leader continues to defy the march of time, political gravity and opponents who long to see him face justice for alleged crimes against humanity. Mandela's desperately frail physical condition has been thrown into sharp relief by Mugabe's energy on the campaign trail in recent weeks.