The Zimbabwean opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, is increasing the pressure on President Robert Mugabe by calling for a five-day national strike and urging the people to take to the streets.
”Rise up in your millions and take part in nationwide peaceful protest marches for democracy and good governance to encourage Zanu-PF [the government party] to take dialogue seriously,” he says in an advertisement published in the Daily News today.
Mass public protest is a new strategy for his party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and it is not certain that the marches will succeed.
The regime has shown it is not afraid to use the police and army to break up public demonstrations critical of the government.
The security forces have not hesitated to use rifles and teargas against even small demonstrations, and they also have armoured personnel carriers fitted with water cannon and machine guns, bought from Israel last year.
Public anger at the shortage of food, fuel, electricity and even bank notes has risen to a new peak this week, convincing the MDC to bring forward the strike, originally planned for mid-June.
The stoppage is expected to be a significant vote of no confidence in the Mugabe regime.
The MDC has already closed the country down twice, with national strikes lasting two days and three days in March and April respectively.
”The strike will be a success, there is no question about that,” a Zimbabwean journalist said.
”It is crunch time for the government. Everybody is angry. No one can get fuel. No one can get cash, because the country has run out of currency. No one can afford even basic food. People are hungry. We have electricity blackouts at any time. And everyone knows who is wrong. They blame the government.”
Inflation is running at 260% a year, according to official statistics, and many economists say it is even higher.
Workers have not been fully paid for the past two weeks because the banks are short of notes. The government does not have the foreign currency to import ink and paper to print more of the increasingly worthless Zimbabwe dollar.
But even the rapidly growing public fury does not guarantee that the MDC will succeed in mobilising a huge protest.
It is difficult to concentrate a large number of people in the centre of Harare because most of the capital’s population live in townships up to 30 kilometres away.
”It is difficult to say if the call for mass action will succeed,” said a lawyer. ”The anger of the people is palpable, you can feel it. But so far no one has held a mass public protest, and people are afraid of being mowed down by the police and army.
”But there is an increasing sense of desperation amongst many people that they have nothing to lose, and that will make it dangerous for the Mugabe regime.”
Even if the protest does not succeed, it could pave the way for future action which could topple the regime, in the way that the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic was forced out of office in Belgrade by a popular uprising.
Brian Raftopoulos, chairman of the Zimbabwe in Crisis Coalition, said: ”The stay-away and mass action are not designed to topple the Mugabe regime … they are geared towards adding pressure on Mugabe to enter negotiations.” – Guardian Unlimited Â