Mugabe exit off the agenda
2003-12-02 08:55
Harare, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu-PF party has ruled out any discussion of a possible successor to President Robert Mugabe at its annual conference this week, state radio reported on Monday.
Party spokesperson Nathan Shamuyarira dismissed media speculation that Mugabe's eventual departure from office topped the agenda at the four-day meeting starting Thursday in the southern town of Masvingo.
"The Zanu-PF conference will not discuss the issue of succession," Shamuyarira was quoted as saying by the station.
The matter would wait until the party's larger, five-yearly congress next year, radio reported.
Mugabe, Zimbabwe's leader since independence from Britain in 1980, has been under pressure from opponents and reformers within his own party to name a successor and step down. The uncertainty has fuelled rivalry by likely contenders within Zanu-PF's upper echelons.
About three thousand party officials and delegates from the nation's 10 provinces are expected to attend this week's conference in Masvingo, 300km south of the capital, Harare.
The conference comes as Zimbabwe faces deepening political and economic crisis.
Mugabe, 79, narrowly won re-election last year amid claims of vote rigging and intimidation.
Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth of Britain and its former territories after the poll, and Mugabe has been barred from attending the organisation's upcoming summit in Nigeria.
The government has also stepped up a crackdown on political dissent, arresting opposition leaders and shutting down the country's only independent daily newspaper.
The often-violent seizure of thousands of white-owned farms have crippled the agriculture-based economy.
Official inflation is running at 526%, and there are acute shortages of hard currency, food, gasoline, medicine and other imports.
- AP