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Zanu PF in a tizzy over Dabengwa
Moshoeshoe Monare, Sunday Independent (SA)
March 16, 2008

http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=18385

Rattled by mistrust within the inner core of the Zanu PF leadership, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is expected to put pressure on his own politburo members to declare their loyalty. The politburo - the most powerful decision-making organ of the party - meets on Wednesday to discuss its senior member, Dumiso Dabengwa, who openly defied Mugabe to support Simba Makoni, the rival presidential candidate. Makoni was expelled from the politburo last month for declaring that he would challenge Mugabe during presidential elections on March 29. After Dabengwa claimed that there were more Makoni allies in the politburo, Mugabe is expected to question members' loyalty. Mugabe and the politburo could face a constitutional crisis on Wednesday if they decide to expel Dabengwa. The constitution of Zanu PF allows for expulsion only when a politburo member stands as an independent candidate or joins another party, charges they cannot put to Dabengwa.

In fact, he still regards himself as a full politburo member. He told the Harare-based Quill Press Club this week that he would attend the Wednesday crisis meeting. But this week Mugabe told reporters that Dabengwa had already decided "his fate", and accused his former cabinet minister of betraying the liberation struggle. Dabengwa is a tribalist who will use Makoni to buttress his Matebeleland support base and to resuscitate Zapu, a rival party that later merged with Zanu PF, according to a Mugabe ally. Dabengwa is not the only politburo member unsettling Mugabe's 18-year political career as head of state. Retired general Solomon Mujuru, Mugabe's trusted ally who put him into power in exile, was publicly silent on his loyalty to the president when first approached by Makoni. But this week Mugabe told reporters that Mujuru had visited him on Monday and had distanced himself from Makoni. He added that Mujuru had said it was "untenable" for him to support Makoni given that his wife, Joyce Mujuru, is the vice-president in Zanu PF and in the government.

However, Mujuru did not necessarily renounce his own political standing. The meeting lasted only a few minutes. "[Mugabe] asked him if there was anything else . . . And that was it," a reliable source said this week. Unsettling Mugabe further, Dabengwa told reporters on Wednesday that more than 60 percent of Zanu PF's central committee supported Makoni's course. "I don't think I want to go into mentioning names," he said. "I don't think it would benefit anybody if I did. But I can tell you that I estimate a good 60 percent of that membership was supportive, and is still supportive, of the move that we have taken." He told members of the Quill Press Club that the plan to oust Mugabe and three members of his presidium [vice-presidents] was hatched before last year's Zanu PF congress. He said the move to get Makoni to challenge Mugabe finally came when the central committee tried to force the congress to endorse Mugabe.

"[At] the beginning of this year we started debating that issue among ourselves. Are we going to an election that we will win? First, are we ourselves convinced in our consciences that we can go and vote for the incumbent [Mugabe] as our president?" If the answer to that question was no, he said, how could he then work to convince others to vote for Mugabe? "No ways, my conscience will not allow me to do that." After Dabengwa's address at the Quill Press Club, more reports of fractures within Mugabe's inner circle emerged, with Happyton Bonyongwe, the director of the central intelligence agency, mentioned as supporting Makoni. However, Bonyongwe denied this in the state-owned Herald newspaper yesterday. "On my part really, I have no association whatsoever with the Makoni group and everything being said is rubbish," he was quoted as saying.

Mugabe's thrust on the campaign trail this week was aimed at rubbishing Makoni, Dabengwa, and Morgan Tsvangirai, the Movement for Democratic Change leader who is also a presidential candidate. This is a sign of panic, according to one Harare-based independent journalist. Zanu PF has taken out full-page advertisements daily in the state newspapers trying to show how Tsvangirai preferred personal comfort while most political leaders opted for liberation war in the 1970s. Tsvangirai could not be reached for comment yesterday. A Mugabe aide said that, although they were concerned about Tsvangirai's campaign, they were less unnerved by "this young boy", Makoni. "He is not a factor at all," the aide said. While Makoni's campaign is battling in the rural areas and attracting a handful of supporters, for the first time Tsvangirai is gathering rural support and has been addressing large rallies. Mugabe's support has not shown a significant decline.

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