ZIMBABWE: ZANU-PF wants to make Mugabe president for life (IRIN)

[Eugene]

Source: IRIN News

ZIMBABWE: ZANU-PF wants to make Mugabe president for life

HARARE, 30 July 2007 (IRIN) - A recent central committee meeting
of Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party called for President Robert
Mugabe to be installed as president for life, and the creation of
ideological schools targeting preschool children.

The minutes of the party's central committee and politburo meeting
on 30 March - the two most powerful ZANU-PF organs, both chaired
by Mugabe in his capacity as president and first secretary of the
ruling party - were adopted on 4 May and subsequently leaked to
an IRIN correspondent.

Amid an economic meltdown characterised by an inflation rate of more
than 4,000 percent, South African President Thabo Mbeki, charged by
the Southern Africa Development Community with negotiating an end
to Zimbabwe's political impasse, acknowledged at the weekend that
free and fair elections would be the best route out of the crisis.

Mugabe, 83, has been in power since Zimbabwe achieved independence
from Britain in 1980, and has already declared his candidature in the
parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for March 2008.

-snip-

Theme(s): (IRIN) Governance

(This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations)


Read more: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73493

[rinsd]

1. Well he's done such a bang up job so far

:eyes:

[shenmue]

2. Don't like the sound of that

"For life"? That can't be good. Sounds too much like a king.

[Jack Rabbit]

3. There's a silver lining in that idea:

Mugabe is 83.

[mainegreen]

4. Jesus. Wasn't the ZANU-PF just saying he would step down after 'winning' the next election?

He'd even started the process, theoretically, of picking out his successor.
Given that Gono is still in charge of the central bank despite roundly criticizing Mugabe, Mugabe claiming to step down, the ZANU-PF claiming their going to make him president for life, the rolling out of the new denominations (effectively 500,000,000 and 200,000,000 million zim notes, including the three zeros dropped six ( ? ) months ago) I think we can roundly say that it's starting to look like those in control are rapidly loosing control.
I'm sure the ZANU-PF leadership is starting to see the writing on the wall, is starting to wake up to the fact that when the end comes it will be very bad for them, are reaching for increasingly more drastic measures to try and stay in power. When the reckoning comes to Zimbabwe, it will go badly for them.

[hatrack]

5. Yes, if hitting Weimar-era levels of inflation doesn't merit "president for life", what does?

:eyes: