OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Wednesday
ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe this week begins the most desperate struggle of his political career to survive a wave of antagonism against him from within his own party ranks.
Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF party starts a four-day extraordinary congress on Thursday, where the question on everyone’s mind – whether Mugabe will stand in the 2002 election – is not on the agenda.
But faced with an unprecedented economic crisis, a hugely unpopular war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the success of a new opposition party, Mugabe faces a difficult political future.
In preparation for the congress, Mugabe has mounted a ferocious counter-attack to try and crush any sign of opposition, and to entrench his rule.
“There is pervasive dissent,” said Dr Masipula Sithole, veteran political commentator and senior political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe.
“He might manage to crush dissent at the congress, but he cannot crush it in the country. Those who he crushes will simply join the rest of society that is dissenting.”
The party held its regular five-yearly congress a year ago, and endorsed Mugabe’s leadership for another five years – at the end of which he will turn 80.
But he also faced new demands for accountability and political reform including that the membership of the politburo, the party’s executive committee, be elected, instead of being hand-picked by Mugabe alone.
He refused to discuss the issue then, and promised instead to hold an extraordinary congress this year to deal with it.
Also, earlier this year at a meeting of the 160-member central committee, Mugabe was forced to fend off debate over his future by saying it would be dealt with at the special congress.
But now these two items have disappeared from the agenda.
“Let me say that the succession (to Mugabe) will not be discussed,” announced Didymus Mutasa, politburo loyalist and the party’s secretary for administration. “It simply won’t happen.”
The attempt to trim his powers of choosing his own executive has also vanished.
The aim of the congress, said Mutasa, was “primarily to discuss the state of the economy, particularly the land issue and to affirm the party’s faith in the president’s programme. It will also afford his excellency the president the opportunity to appoint a new politburo.”
Mobs of war veterans are expected to be out in force at the congress.