Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe opens the annual congress of his ruling Zanu-PF party on Friday, buoyed by his recent big win in controversial senate elections and infighting that has left the opposition in tatters.
About 5 000 delegates of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) will converge on the small town of Esigodini in the southern Matabeland province, an opposition stronghold where the party won all five seats for the new senate in the polls last month.
The three-day congress held under the theme ”Consolidating Our Gains” is to take stock of Zanu-PF’s victories in the March parliamentary vote and the November senate elections, said party spokesperson Nathan Shamuyarira.
Under Mugabe’s leadership, Zanu-PF has kept a tight grip on power in Zimbabwe ever since the Southern African country won independence from Britain in 1980.
Delegates are also to discuss land reform and there may be new appointments to senior party positions that will be closely watched for clues about possible contenders to succeed Mugabe, who has said he wants to retire in 2008.
Last year’s congress was marred by a party revolt over Mugabe’s choice of Joyce Mujuru to be his vice-president, prompting the 81-year-old leader to launch a purge of several senior party officials including six of the 10 provincial party chairpersons.
Land reform to be debated
The ruling party weekly newspaper The Voice said in its latest edition that land reform would be ”widely debated” at the congress to assess the performance of new black farmers who were given land seized from white farmers.
Top Zimbabwean officials have recently acknowledged that the apathetic attitude of many black farmers who were given land was responsible for the country’s food crisis and warned that some farms could be reclaimed.
More than four million Zimbabweans are in need of food aid, according to the United Nations World Food Programme, which last week signed an agreement with the government to launch a massive food distribution plan.
About 4 000 white farmers have lost their land under the policy launched in 2000 to redress imbalances created under British colonial rule when the majority of farmland was owned by whites.
But after facing a stiff challenge for the past six years from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, Zanu-PF is expected to breathe easier.
The MDC remains divided and weak over a bitter row sparked by leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s call for a boycott of the senate elections.
Commenting on the state of Zana-PF’s main political rival, party chairperson John Nkomo dismissed opposition claims that the ruling party has infiltrated the MDC.
”Zanu-PF has never interfered with the MDC. MDC has no agenda and was bound to collapse,” Nkomo was quoted as saying in the state-controlled daily The Herald.
”The opposition party was a creation of our former colonial master to ward off the land reforms,” he said.
‘Fuel is abundant here’
The price of fuel in Zimbabwe has been unofficially hiked nearly six times, reports said on Thursday.
Petrol is now selling openly in fuel stations for up to Z$120 000 ($1,62) a litre, according to the state-run Herald newspaper. The price set by President Robert Mugabe’s government in September was Z$22 300 a litre.
The Zimbabwe dollar has lost value in the last three months and private fuel companies have decided that price controls no longer apply, the paper said.
”It is understood that most companies were using last week’s sentiments by the Minister of Finance Dr Herbert Murerwa that it was ‘critical that market pricing mechanisms be embraced, which are central to ensuring the viability of industry, as well as the well-being of consumers’ to mean that there were no more price controls,” it said.
The price of basic goods has also rocketed in supermarkets in the last few days.
Zimbabwe has been suffering from a critical fuel shortage since March this year, and all but a few fuel stations ran dry. Drivers who could afford it turned to the black market for fuel where the commodity was available but at a much higher price.
Now some service stations appear to be openly charging black market prices.
”Fuel is abundant here and if you want you can buy your coupons and get as many litres as you want,” said one petrol attendant at a garage in Harare’s Kamfinsa suburb. Twenty litres at the garage costs Z$2,4-million ($32), the Herald said.
The state oil company appears to be turning a blind eye to the hikes.
”There has not been any price increases as far as we are concerned. They [filling stations] are charging the prices to recover their costs of importing the fuel into the country,” an unnamed official at the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (Noczim) told the paper. – Sapa-dpa, Sapa-AFP