Even while the battles with his coalition partners keep him busy, Robert Mugabe has not forgotten to take care of things at home. Mugabe has initiated a process to have Zanu-PF declare him ”supreme leader” at its next congress, ending contests for his position once and for all.
He has now had one of his party’s most influential provinces, the Midlands, declare him Zimbabwe’s ”supreme leader”, effectively putting a stop to whatever ambitions there might have been among his lieutenants.
Mugabe will now sit back and watch the remaining nine provinces fall in line. His intention is to snuff out troubles in his own party before the Zanu-PF congress in December.
The 85-year-old president surprised a recent meeting of his politburo by announcing a ”succession committee”, raising the hopes of ambitious allies and opponents alike that he might, finally, be considering retirement.
According to Zanu-PF deputy spokesperson Ephraim Masawi, the committee would ”set the parameters to be followed whenever the party decides to elect its top leadership, the procedure to be followed when talking about succession”.
”The succession plan that the committee shall come up with should be anchored on procedure and not personality,” Masawi said.
But Mugabe has not taken long to disabuse Zimbabweans of any thoughts that personality is irrelevant. ”The Zanu-PF Midlands province has declared him Supreme Leader and endorsed him as the party’s candidate in all elections,” the party announced this week.
Unless they want to be branded sellouts, leaders of the rest of the party’s provinces are now expected to make similar declarations of allegiance soon. Mugabe will then again coast through the congress without any threat to his rule.
A member of the politburo said this week that Mugabe’s appointment to the committee of two men said to lead the rival factions vying for power, Emmerson Mnangagwa and Solomon Mujuru, ”was a sign he clearly does not want this thing to go anywhere”.
”They will be at each other’s throats while the old man goes about the business of making himself even more comfortable in power,” the official said.
According to Mnangagwa, whose province in the Midlands took the decision to declare Mugabe ”supreme leader” in recognition of his stance on the land issue in the face of international condemnation and isolation.
”There is no other leader, anywhere, who could have withstood the kind of pressure he faced, and still declared, ‘I will give my people land’.”
Mnangagwa has managed to turn his fortunes around in recent years. He had fallen out of favour with Mugabe when he secured the support of the majority of the party provincial votes for the position of Mugabe’s deputy at the 2004 congress.
Mugabe, who wanted Joice Mujuru, sacked the provincial chairmen who had backed Mnangagwa and cancelled the vote.
But he now seems to have changed his mind, trusting Mnangagwa to head his election team in 2008 while freezing out Mujuru, whom he suspects of plotting against him.
Mugabe has blamed the divisions in his party for his election setbacks last year and has told his politburo that he will not leave office until they stop jostling for his seat. However, his top officials blame the tensions in the party on his refusal to allow open debate about his future.
At the congress Zanu-PF is likely to vote for a replacement for Joseph Msika, one of Mugabe’s two deputies, who has not appeared in public in months because of illness.