Dissatisfaction with Mugabe grows

Everything you'd expect to find in the office of a senior official in Zimbabwe's ruling party was there: the dominating portrait of President Robert Mugabe; the yellowing photos of liberation martyrs and heroes. The only discordant note was in the words of the official himself.

"People loved Mugabe. We loved Mugabe." "We need to look for someone else," the official continued, adding that many in the ruling ZANU-PF party agree with him that it's time for the Old Man to go.

Just months ago, a conversation like this, particularly with a foreign journalist, would have been unthinkable. But Mugabe, 83, is losing powerful factions in his own party and the increasingly disaffected army, police and security forces.

The only leader Zimbabwe has known since the end of white minority rule in 1979, he has ruled with fear and patronage. Those who fell out of favor were fired, beaten or killed, and secret police kept careful watch on perceived enemies. For much of that time, however, Zimbabwe also was among the most prosperous countries in Africa.

Mugabe started seizing land from white commercial farmers in 2000, and much of it ended up in the hands of political cronies. The move paralyzed Zimbabwe's most successful economic sector and biggest employer.

Now, he presides over a country with an official inflation rate of 1,730 percent, the world's highest; and life expectancy that the World Health Organization estimates at only 36 years.

Unemployment is about 80 percent. Grass grows high along potholed highways; few people can afford a bus fare, let alone gas. They gather in large groups, waiting for a lift. When a truck stops, they swarm it. The political opposition is once more trying to mount a challenge.

Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change and other opposition leaders were arrested Wednesday, a little more than two weeks after Tsvangirai was arrested, beaten and then hospitalized.

Even as he cracks down on the opposition, Mugabe's support among his core backers has evaporated as hyperinflation eats into the business interests of ruling party heavyweights and gobbles police and army wages, causing mass desertions and resignations.

"The internal problems we have got are much larger than the problems created by the MDC," said the party official. "I don't think that even the president worries about the MDC. He's much more worried about what is happening in his own party."

African leaders, normally mute about Zimbabwe's human rights abuses and economic collapse, also have grown more alarmed since Tsvangirai and dozens of other activists were arrested and beaten up in Harare on March 11. About 100 activists have been hospitalized since then.

Many of them were abducted from their homes and severely beaten, often with iron bars. The opposition is demanding a new constitution leading to free and fair elections next year and is reportedly willing to offer Mugabe immunity from prosecution. Without reform, it has threatened to boycott next year's election.

Leaders of the South African Development Community, a regional group, will hold an emergency meeting in Tanzania on Thursday at which they are expected to press Mugabe to spell out plans to retire and ensure an orderly transition. The small ruling party clique which still supports Mugabe argues that ZANU-PF will collapse in chaos if he goes.

Many citizens still are too afraid to speak out. Simuwe Mwenzi, a 64-year-old widow who lives in a poor neighborhood of Bulawayo, said she is losing the battle to stay ahead of inflation and feed three grandchildren.

LATimes