PEACEKEEPERS
Tsvangirai said the regional SADC will hold a meeting on the run-off vote next Tuesday at which sending regional peacekeepers to Zimbabwe will be discussed.
"But I told them that by the 1st of June they should put these people on the ground otherwise we don't need them. You can't have peacekeepers and observers two weeks before an election because they will not be of any benefit. What we want is a complete demilitarisation of the situation," he added.
SADC, which is due to monitor the run-off, said this month that conditions were neither safe nor fair yet for a fresh vote.
Zimbabweans hope the run-off will start recovery from an economic collapse that has brought 165,000 percent inflation, 80 percent unemployment, chronic food and fuel shortages and has sent millions fleeing to nearby countries.
The MDC has vowed to "bury" Mugabe in the run-off, ending his uninterrupted rule since independence from Britain in 1980.
But the 84-year-old veteran leader has also vowed that he will win the June 27 poll because his ZANU-PF could not afford to lose power to an opposition backed by "white imperialists."
Mugabe says the MDC enjoys the backing of Western powers out to oust him over his seizure of white-owned farms to give to landless blacks. The MDC denies the charge.
Mugabe's party lost control of parliament on March 29 for the first time since it came to power, and the opposition says the former guerrilla leader can only win the June 27 re-run through violence and rigging votes.
"If Mugabe thinks he has beaten people into submission, he will have a rude shock on the 27th," Tsvangirai said.
A 30-year-old man, in a small crowd of people who saw Tsvangirai's convoy arriving at a city hotel for the news conference, said he was happy the MDC leader had returned home.
"I don't think he should have stayed away for so long, but I think MDC supporters will support him, and I hope he wins," said the man, who declined to give his name.
