Challenger to Mugabe in Zimbabwe

JOHANNESBURG, Feb. 6th. (NY Times) — A senior member of Zimbabwe's ruling party, Simba Makoni, announced Tuesday that he would run for president against Robert G. Mugabe, the man who has kept a mighty hold on power for nearly 30 years and presided over one of the world’s most horrific economic free falls. Mr. Makoni, Zimbabwe’s former finance minister, said that though he would run as an independent in the March 29 election, he had held “intensive consultations” with fellow members of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, ZANU-PF, and others before deciding.

This is a significant twist. Mr. Mugabe had been expected to coast to victory, especially after the nation’s main opposition group — the splintered Movement for Democratic Change — failed last weekend to unite behind one presidential candidate. Mr. Mugabe, 83, may still win handily in his bid for a sixth term. But Mr. Makoni, 57, represents a credible rallying point for Zimbabwe’s disaffected. “Let me confirm that I share the agony and anguish of all citizens over the extreme hardships that we all have endured for nearly 10 years now,” Mr. Makoni said at a news conference. “I also share the widely held view that these hardships are a result of failure of national leadership,” he said, and that change is necessary. He did not identify those hardships, though he might well have referred to an official inflation rate of 26,470 percent, grocery shelves empty of bread and gas stations without fuel.

Mr. Mugabe blames Britain and other Western nations for Zimbabwe’s economic woes, saying these countries have punished his government for seizing land from white farmers. In the past decade, Mr. Mugabe’s best-known political opponent has been Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the larger faction of the Movement for Democratic Change. In 2000, a year after the movement was founded, it nearly won control of Parliament. In 2002, Mr. Tsvangirai waged a strong enough presidential race to force Mr. Mugabe to resort to what many Western governments called widespread fraud and voter intimidation. But the M.D.C. split in two in 2005. A consensus seemed near recently, but talks collapsed over which candidates would seek which seats in Parliament.
By Barry Bearak
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