Tatenda Malan, AfricaNews reporter in Windhoek, Namibia
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe won his party's support to remain in office at a conference on Thursday aimed at choosing a nominee for coming elections and quelling the infighting to succeed him. President Mugabe is locked in a fractious coalition with his political rival, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. That union came about after the violence surrounding the 2008 poll.
“Both partners have since described coalition as unworkable, but have differed sharply on timing of elections. We are saying time has come now to prepare to have elections - we just have to have elections next year,” Mugabe told the conference in the city of Bulawayo.
He said the unity government had “overstayed its welcome”.
“Our country does not have an elected government,” he said. "I am president to a political arrangement which is makeshift, undemocratic and illegitimate.”
The 87-year-old president, who came to power in 1980, ending minority white rule in Zimbabwe, remains the political core of his party.
Many allies want him to remain in power to prevent the party from fracturing amid power struggles among his top lieutenants.
But Tsvangirai says Zimbabwe needs to implement a new constitution, which is being drafted, to guide the elections.
Zanu PF leaders want elections as soon as possible, urging that a constitution be completed in time for a 2012 vote.
On Thursday, Mugabe spoke for more than two hours, in a wide-ranging speech that touched on a drive by ZANU-PF to force mining companies to surrender at least 51 percent stakes to blacks.
He stressed that the indigenisation policy was not an election gamble, but meant to address colonial imbalances.
“We will not reverse this policy. Let no one deceive themselves that it's devised for the elections. No, it's a fundamental policy,” Mugabe said.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe won his party's support to remain in office at a conference on Thursday aimed at choosing a nominee for coming elections and quelling the infighting to succeed him. President Mugabe is locked in a fractious coalition with his political rival, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. That union came about after the violence surrounding the 2008 poll.
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