Mwana Africa - A New beginning

Cape Times

December 19, 2006

Editorial

Maybe it's just desperate, wishful thinking, but did a hairline crack appear in dictatorial Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe's otherwise impervious façade of power this past weekend?

A resolution was tabled at the conference of the ruling Zanu-PF to "harmonise" the country's |legislative and presidential elections which would have effectively postponed presidential elections from 2008 to 2010 and allowed Mugabe to stay in office until then.

By then he would have clocked up a neat round figure of 30 years at the helm. Mugabe made it clear that he was ready to stay on, warning aspirants for his job that there was no vacancy at the top.

The conference is widely reported to have endorsed the proposal to keep Mugabe on until 2010. But in fact it did not adopt the resolution to that effect. The delegates could not agree and referred the resolution back to the provincial committee and the central committee to decide.

Resistance to the proposal was led by the two main presidential aspirants, Vice President Joice Mujuru and housing minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, according to some observers.

It would be foolish to underestimate the shrewd and ruthless Mugabe and it is entirely possible that he will now suppress this resistance as he has brutally suppressed all other opposition to his 26 years of autocratic rule. Still, this was a hopeful, if small, sign that discontent may be rising within the ruling party against Mugabe because of the terrible mess he has made of the country.

Inflation has now passed 1 000% and shows no signs of levelling off. Hunger grips the land and millions of its people are fleeing as refugees into neighbouring countries.

The country's situation is desperate. The international effort to bring Zimbabwe to its senses has run out of steam and the internal opposition is impotent.

The only hope for change now lies within Zanu-PF. The big question is whether Mugabe's impatient would-be successors can outsmart the old fox.