Zimbabwe, battle for the power

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has told his deeply divided ZANU-PF to prepare for elections but his movement may never regain absolute power after losing its parliamentary majority last year, analysts said. Mugabe had enjoyed uninterrupted rule since independence in 1980 but ZANU-PF suffered its first defeat last year in March and was forced to form a unity government with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The next election is expected in 2011 after a new constitution is drafted that is expected to guarantee a fair vote. The poll could otherwise be in 2013 if the unity government runs its full five-year term.

“Let’s begin to work for the party and to organise it strongly. Elections are not very far off,” Mugabe told ZANU-PF members at the end of a two-day congress late on Saturday.

His party resolved that its strategic aim would be “the checking, containment and ultimate defeat of the West’s neo-colonial regime change agenda by securing a decisive and uncontested victory in the next harmonised elections”.

Political analysts said that would be difficult as ZANU-PF is increasingly being weakened by in-fighting over who will succeed Mugabe when he steps down, with no candidate seeming strong enough to challenge Tsvangirai other than Mugabe.

Tsvangirai defeated the 85-year-old Mugabe in last year’s presidential vote but not by enough to avoid a second round, which the veteran leader went on to win in a one-man contest after a violent campaign that forced Tsvangirai to quit the race.

(Reuters)