From Reuters

A disputed election victory by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF threatens a fragile economic recovery as the party warned it would speed up a drive to seize majority stakes in foreign firms.

But the win also offers Mugabe’s party an opportunity to mend ties with foreign donors that have suspended support over policy differences with the veteran leader, who appears to have secured a five-year extension to this 33 year rule.

In comments that may rattle foreign-owned banks and mining firms in the southern African state, ZANU-PF legal affairs deputy secretary Patrick Chinamasa said the party was ready to rebuild damaged relations with the West, but would press on with the transfer of control of foreign firms to locals.

“We will keep pushing for local ownership of companies. We will keep pushing for a Zimbabwean economy,” Chinamasa told a news conference. “There has to be something to show for the fact that Zimbabwe has an abundance of natural resources.”

The economy had started to stabilize after Mugabe formed a unity government in 2009 with rival Morgan Tsvangirai to end a stand-off over another contested election, halting a decade of recession marked by hyper-inflation and chronic shortages of food and foreign currency.

Those hardships are still fresh in the minds of Zimbabweans, who endured long queues for everything from bread to fuel and cash and are wary of ZANU-PF’s poor track record on the economy.

Read more at Reuters.