ZIMBABWE:Robert Mugabe sought to secure his future as Zimbabwe's president yesterday amid growing dissent in his party at the economic and political chaos in the country.
Zanu-PF's central committee met to consider Mr Mugabe's proposal to delay a presidential election to 2010, extending his rule by at least two years.
Two dissident factions in the party appear to have blocked that move, but now face the difficulty of how to prevent Mr Mugabe from running as the Zanu-PF candidate if the election is held on schedule next year. As head of his party he is also automatically its candidate, and Zanu-PF is not due to have another leadership election until 2009.
One option is to force an extraordinary party congress to block Mr Mugabe, but that would require rival factions to unite against Zimbabwe's president, who has previously proven adept at dividing his opponents.
Mr Mugabe opened the central committee meeting with a call on his party to remain united and resist "the machinations of the West" which he accused of fomenting violence in Zimbabwe. "Our organs . . . have to adopt a high sense of vigilancy and militancy," he said.
One of the dissident factions, led by the former army chief Solomon Mujuru, whose wife, Joice, is Zimbabwe's vice-president, has been holding talks with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
The two have agreed some basic principles for the post-Mugabe era, including the setting up of a powersharing government while a new constitution is written ahead of elections.
Tendai Biti, the MDC secretary general, who has been part of the talks, said his party remained wary of the dissidents.
"It's about power. They are not disciples of democracy. They only want to replace Mugabe because that is what the people want and the party wants to remain popular," he said. "Privately they acknowledge that the old man is sinking and he wants to take all of them down with him."
Mr Mugabe went into the meeting emboldened by what he characterised as a victory at a summit of southern African leaders on Thursday which endorsed his controversial election five years ago as free and fair and called on the West to lift sanctions against Zimbabwe.
However, the appointment of President Thabo Mbeki as a mediator between Mr Mugabe and the opposition was a humiliation for the Zimbabwean leader and suggested that the region's leaders took a stronger line with him behind closed doors.
But the Harare government portrayed the meeting as accepting Mr Mugabe's claims that the MDC is using a "terror campaign" against his rule.
Mr Mugabe faces a national strike next week after Zimbabwe's main trade union confederation said it would defy government threats and press ahead with the two-day stoppage from Tuesday, but would not call street protests for fear of violence.
The unions are demanding a minimum monthly wage of 1m Zimbabwean dollars, about €44, in the rapidly devaluing black market value of the currency.
Police arrested the union confederation's leaders after they organised a similar protest six months ago. Previous strikes have largely failed because of government intimidation and because workers are afraid of losing jobs in a country with 80 per cent unemployment.
- (Guardian service)