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Zimbabwe's opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, believes that if he returns to his country now, he will face imprisonment and possible attack, and thus undermine his movement's hope of taking office.

"Do you want a dead hero?" he told The Globe yesterday.

Mr. Tsvangirai left Zimbabwe on April 8, 10 days after an election he is widely believed to have won, although the government's electoral commission has yet to release the results, three weeks later.

The leader of the Movement for Democratic Change has spent the time since then shuttling between southern African capitals. But as Harare intensifies its crackdown on MDC supporters in Zimbabwe, with more than 175 people hospitalized for beatings at the hands of police and militias, Mr. Tsvangirai is facing increasing calls to come home.

"It's like a father, when the father is away, children always ask, 'Where is the father,' but father may make an assessment that it is not opportune at that particular time to do certain things," he said.

"I'm mobilizing international support, I'm being effective in making sure that the issue of Zimbabwe remains on the international radar. … It is no use going back to Zimbabwe and become captive. Then you are not effective. What can you do?"

Mr. Tsvangirai has been imprisoned repeatedly by the government of Robert Mugabe and was savagely beaten by police last year.

"The minute we go home, they'll arrest us, they'll take our passports and that will be it," said George Tshibotshiwa, a senior aide to Mr. Tsvangirai, speaking in the drab Johannesburg office that has become the leadership's temporary headquarters.

On Thursday, Zimbabwe's Justice Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, said the government had found documents showing Mr. Tsvangirai was committing "treason," plotting with former colonial power Britain to topple the government, and would face the "obvious consequences."

In 2002, Mr. Tsvangirai was charged with treason and had the threat of the death penalty hanging over him for two years before he was acquitted.

Mr. Tsvangirai has said repeatedly over the past week that he would return imminently to Zimbabwe, and made that pledge again yesterday, saying it is a matter "of days, not weeks," but that before he goes to Harare and possible arrest, he must continue the shuttle diplomacy that he now views as the strategy most likely to unseat Mr. Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since its independence in 1980.

"We want to cut the umbilical cord of Mugabe with Africa," he said. "I am certain that those who will … remain with Mugabe will be those rogue states."

He said he was making "big progress" on this task, and taking heart from an emerging split in the Southern African Development Community, the top regional body. For SADC, "even to disagree is progress," he said.

SADC members have long cited the principle of state sovereignty and refused to speak out against Mr. Mugabe. Regional leaders delegated dealing with the crisis in Zimbabwe to South African President Thabo Mbeki, who favoured a policy of "quiet diplomacy" that has produced no visible change over five years of mediation.

Zimbabwe's once-vibrant economy is shattered, with inflation running higher than 168,000 per cent. The country is critically short of food, fuel and basic medicines, and some four million refugees have fled over its borders to neighbouring states.

At an emergency SADC summit last weekend, Mr. Tsvangirai said, regional leaders were evenly split over continuing to support Mr. Mugabe; he has now asked the Zambian President to take over mediation, saying Zimbabweans "do not believe [Mr. Mbeki] is an honest broker."

Here in South Africa, Mr. Tsvangirai has clearly made inroads with the governing African National Congress, the new leadership of which has come out in favour of "crisis talks" with the parties in Zimbabwe and has strong-armed Mr. Mbeki into dropping his quiet-diplomacy strategy.

Today, Zimbabwe's electoral commission is set to hold a recount of the parliamentary vote in 23 constituencies.

Mr. Tshibotshiwa said he was "quite sure" that the recount would give ZANU-PF back at least the 16 seats it would need to retake a parliamentary majority.

Last week, soldiers moved into the electoral centre and removed the ballot boxes, and the opposition has had no information on their whereabouts, nor have any opposition or independent observers been given information about how to witness the recount.

At the end of his afternoon yesterday, Mr. Tsvangirai turned from two foreign journalists to a radio interview in chiShona, broadcast back home. While he assured Zimbabweans that he was "with you in your struggle," an assistant showed in a salesman carrying 10 boxes of size 43 black leather dress shoes. Mr. Tsvangirai is spending so much time on his feet, Mr. Tshibotshiwa said, that he needs something with a softer sole.