Harare, Zimbabwe ? President Robert Mugabe’s loyalists on Sunday demanded a recount of the results of the March 29 presidential election, mobilized feared militias and warned peasant farmers that whites were massing on Zimbabwe’s borders, ready to recolonize the nation if the opposition wins a runoff.

The flurry of moves showed how Mugabe, 84, has reclaimed the initiative since his election loss to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, when even some of the president’s closest associates were urging him to step down after 28 years in power.

Instead, Mugabe is preparing to contest a runoff with tactics that have served him well in the past. News reports of invasions of at least 10 white-owned commercial farms Sunday were reminiscent of 2000, when Mugabe, fresh from a loss in a constitutional referendum, endorsed a chaotic and frequently violent land redistribution that bolstered his support ahead of crucial parliamentary elections.

Then as now, the effort was initiated by veterans of Zimbabwe’s liberation war, still loyal to Mugabe from his days as leader of the guerrilla army in the 1970s.