Zimbabwe leadership race gains momentum

Zimbabwe’s ruling party at the weekend publicly endorsed 91-year-old President Robert Mugabe as its candidate for elections in 2018 — but his visible frailty means that backstage the focus was on his successor.

Mugabe has stumbled twice in recent public appearances, and in September read a speech to parliament apparently unaware that he had delivered exactly the same address a month earlier.

These signs of weakness in a man who has ruled Zimbabwe with an iron fist for 35 years have injected new urgency into factional battles led by the elite within his ruling ZANU-PF party. “The focus is on retaining power or accessing power as a way of securing their gains and privileges,” Godfrey Kanyenze, head of the Labour and Economic Research Institute of Zimbabwe, said.

“They know if they lose power their farms and businesses will be undermined. That’s why we saw the First Lady [Grace Mugabe] joining in the fray.”

Grace, 50, was appointed leader of the powerful ZANU-PF women’s wing last year and led a vicious campaign that brought about the expulsion of Mugabe’s deputy president and possible successor Joice Mujuru.

Mujuru is believed to be planning to form a new party to contest the next elections, but given ZANU-PF’s record of vote-rigging analysts say the real battle for power lies within the ruling party itself.

Outsiders no problem

The chances of an outsider winning the next election are seen as slim, and not only because of ZANUPF’s history of manipulating elections. “The opposition is nowhere,” said Masunungure. “Ordinarily, you would expect them to take advantage of the deep and profound problems in ZANU-PF but they are in a comatose state.

“That’s why ZANU-PF can afford to engage in factional fighting because they know there is no strong opponent outside the party. As things stand the real rivals for ZANU-PF are within ZANU-PF.”