Robert Mugabe may have secured his party's endorsement to stand for another term in next year's presidential election - but he will leave office almost immediately after his re-election.
According to a highly-placed source in Zanu-PF, he and his close colleagues have accepted that he cannot stay on much longer. So they have hatched a plan to ensure his successor is their choice - and it involves a dramatic rewriting of the Zimbabwean constitution.
At present, if the president resigns or dies in office, a new countrywide election must be held within 90 days. This rule will be abolished.
Instead, the government will grant itself new powers as an electoral college, enabling it to vote in a new president immediately. The new president will then complete the full term of his predecessor - anything
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The president has no intention
of letting ‘disloyal’
Joyce Mujuru
get the top job |
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up to five years, depending on when Mugabe stands down - thus putting him a good position to build foundations for the next election.
If this change goes through - the cabinet is to discuss it this month - it will shatter the ambitions of vice- president Joyce Mujuru, who, under the constitution as currently written, would take over for the 90-day interim period and therefore have a good chance of getting elected.
But Mugabe and Mujuru have fallen out, the President alleging that Joyce and her husband Solomon plotted against him. An official said: "The electoral college [is] full of loyalists who will support Mugabe's choice - and that will not be Joyce Mujuru."
To make sure nothing goes wrong, Mugabe also plans to expand the National Assembly, adding 60 new constituencies to the present 150. He will create the new constituencies in the rural areas where he still commands support.
FIRST POSTED APRIL 6, 2007
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