Zimbabwe’s Information Minister on Thursday dismissed as a ”grandiose flight of imagination” claims by a Brussels-based think tank that President Robert Mugabe’s iron grip on the country was being challenged and could result in political change by next year.
”After years of political deadlock and continued economic and humanitarian decline, a realistic chance has at last begun to appear in the past few months to resolve the Zimbabwean crisis,” the International Crisis Group’s (ICG) report said.
It suggested that powerful factions in the ruling party were against the 83-year-old Mugabe’s plans to extend his rule by two years by pushing through changes to the Constitution that would allow presidential polls to be held in 2010 instead of 2008.
”These ruling party factions might soon be willing to explore a deal that would see Mugabe retire and be replaced by moderate party leaders who would negotiate a transitional arrangement with the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change and civil society,” the ICG said.
The report appeared to have aroused the anger of some in the government. Recently-appointed Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said in a statement that the author was guilty of more than political hallucination.
”No one within its [the ruling party’s] ranks is poised to betray the national liberation legacy that binds the Zanu-PF government with the masses,” Ndlovu said, in a reference to the 1970s war for independence from white minority rule in which Mugabe and senior party officials fought.
The minister insisted that the government of Mugabe — in power since 1980 — had always been people-centred.
Tensions have been rising in Zimbabwe, where an economic crisis is deepening. Already this year, the authorities have been forced to find vast sums of unbudgeted-for cash to fund salary hikes for doctors and teachers whose strikes had all but paralysed major health institutions and some schools.
As shoppers become grimly accustomed to near-daily price hikes, annual inflation in January reached a record 1 593,6%.
Analysts predicted on Thursday that the February rate could top 1 700%.
Meanwhile, the World Food Programme (WFP) painted a gloomy picture for many Zimbabweans in the next few months, warning that cereal crops in much of the south of the country had been decimated by poor rainfall.
In its report, the ICG warned that the declining economy, rising discontent among the police and armed forces and a new willingness among government opponents to engage in protests had increased the risk of sudden major violence.
But the information minister claimed that Zimbabweans were united more than at any other time. – Sapa-DPA