Supporters of Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai opened a two-day congress on Saturday, struggling not only against the autocratic rule of President Robert Mugabe but also against a damaging split in their own party.
The meeting of about 14 000 people, in the capital’s sports centre, is the first since the Movement for Democratic Change split over whether to contest last November’s elections for a new upper house or Senate.
Supporters of a rival faction, who unlike Tsvangirai favoured participation, met in the southwestern city of Bulawayo last month and elected Harvard and Oxford educated Rhodes Scholar Arthur Mutambara to lead them.
Both factions are claiming the right to use the MDC’s name, symbol, funds and property.
The congress was held in an atmosphere of suspicion and tension.
The government earlier this month arrested six of Tsvangirai’s officials, alleging they were involved in a plot against Mugabe and had a secret arms cache. A judge subsequently ordered their release.
Tsvangirai and the MDC were narrowly defeated by Mugabe’s ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front in parliamentary and presidential elections in 2000, 2002 and 2005. Western observers said those votes were heavily marred by intimidation and rigging.
The MDC won a February 2000 referendum on a new Constitution that would have entrenched Mugabe’s power indefinitely. Mugabe blamed the country’s small white minority for the reverse and ordered seizure of 5 000 commercial farms.
Since then the once buoyant economy has been in free fall, with inflation reaching 782%, 80% unemployment, and at least three-million people reliant on international food aid. – Sapa-AP