Robert Mugabe’s “iron grip” on his ruling Zanu-PF party is being broken ahead of this month’s elections as senior party figures “throw their weight” behind Simba Makoni, Mugabe’s former finance minister, says Chris McGreal in The Guardian.
Several party officials and former government ministers, including Dumiso Dabengwa, a member of Zanu-PF’s politburo, and Edgar Tekere who co-founded the party with Mugabe, have backed Makoni’s candidacy in the 29 March election. Powerful former army chief General Solomon Mujuru and his wife Joyce, Mugabe’s deputy, are also thought to back him.
Zanu-FP has expelled Makoni for standing, but that has “probably done him a favour”. Makoni needs to remain “just Zanu-PF enough” to retain the backing of loyalists disillusioned with Mugabe’s “disastrous rule” while appealing to those who want real change. Equally, he must win supporters tired of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), headed by Morgan Tsvangirai. The MDC is itself split, with one of its two factions backing Makoni.
The “stickiest” campaign issue is land. Makoni has said he will not return farms to their white former owners, but will reverse Mugabe’s policy of state ownership which enabled him to evict those who showed disloyalty. Instead the land will be redistributed more fairly to black farmers.
But the toughest opponent Makoni faces is corruption. Aside from a “well-practised vote rigging machine”, the government is trying to garner support via large pay rises to the army and civil servants and distributing food in rural areas. Few believe the elections will be “free and fair”, says Christina Lamb in The Sunday Times, but the economic crisis in Zimbabwe has made Mugabe deeply unpopular. Inflation is running at 100,000%, unemployment at 90% and there are drastic water, food and power shortages.
Makoni is confident of a landslide victory. He told The Daily Telegraph’s Peta Thornycroft that in spite of having no access to state TV or national newspapers he expected to win by with a resounding 70% majority. “The people who are supporting me… agree that the country is ripe for change.”