ZIMBABWE:Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe is to attend a meeting of southern African leaders in Tanzania starting today, in an attempt to rally support for a tilt at extending his faltering presidency beyond next year.
He leaves at home a country in a near terminal state of decay. Zimbabwe's inflation is running at 1,700 per cent and rising.
Aid agencies are planning for famine in a country once regarded as the bread basket of southern Africa. And in the past month, political rallies have been disrupted by armed police. Opposition leaders - including Morgan Tsvangirai, who heads the Movement for Democratic Change - have been hospitalised.
Many analysts believe the latest crackdown signals a "tipping point" for Zimbabwe.
"The prospect of President Mugabe's retirement has created an exceptional rallying point among varied constituencies within the country," says François Grignon, Africa programme director of the International Crisis Group.
"There is widespread agreement that he must leave so that the country can finally make progress on the needed economic and political reforms."
The fortunes of Zimbabwe have been inextricably tied to Mr Mugabe since he wrested control from a small white elite in 1980.
But the early promise he represented has been long forgotten as the country lurched from crisis to crisis and he tightened his despotic grip on power.
This week's emergency meeting of the Southern African Development Community has been called to discuss the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe.
African heads of state are due to spend two days in the Tanzanian economic capital Dar es Salaam. Yesterday Zimbabwe's state-controlled Herald newspaper confirmed Mr Mugabe would attend.
Presidential spokesman George Charamba was quoted as saying Mr Mugabe would brief his colleagues on what he called recent "MDC violence". Later this week Mr Mugabe's colleagues are due to discuss plans for next year's presidential elections amid mounting signs that he has rivals within his own party.
Now 83, Mr Mugabe had said he would like to postpone presidential elections and stay in power until 2010 but Zanu-PF members are resisting this option. He is now urging his party to adopt him as their presidential candidate next year.
He faces a challenge from Solomon Mujuru, a former army chief, bringing real hope that his days are numbered.
Mr Mujuru's supporters have met key MDC figures to discuss an interim powersharing administration.
It is understood that South Africa is emerging as a potential broker for such an agreement, and all eyes are now on the Dar es Salaam meeting to see whether southern African leaders will press Mr Mugabe to back down.
Until now regional heads of state have been reluctant to criticise publicly a man still widely revered as one of black Africa's liberation leaders.
South African president Thabo Mbeki has been criticised in the West for failing to take the initiative. Mr Mbeki, however, has insisted that private diplomacy is a more effective tool in urging reform. But there are signs that things may be changing as Mr Mugabe embarks on yet another attempt to silence opposition.
Last week Levy Mwanawasa, president of Zambia, broke ranks. He said "silent diplomacy" was failing, and compared Zimbabwe to the "sinking Titanic".
Azaveeli Rwaitama, a political scientist at the University of Dar es Salaam, cautions against expecting a breakthrough at the meeting. He says it would be a mistake for the Zimbabwean opposition to count on the SADC leaders to push out Mr Mugabe. "Tsvangirai should not expect the SADC leaders to install him as the president. That is up to his party and the people of Zimbabwe to do that job," he said.
Meanwhile, there are signs Mr Mugabe is preparing for an even more brutal crackdown. A government notice, seen by a Reuters correspondent in Harare, details plans to absorb liberation war veterans - the same men responsible for violent seizures of white-owned farms beginning in 2000 - into the regular military.