The women sat in the rural way; on the ground, with their legs stretched out straight in front of them, under an enormous old tree. The men sat in a group apart from them, all listening to Zimbabwe's newest opposition leader, Simba Makoni.

They had been ordered by the chief of the area not to attend, but they came anyway. They did not move when two policemen approached to watch the meeting, nor were they distracted by a campaign meeting, 200 metres away, of the ruling Zanu (PF) party, even with its large heap of food-for-votes grain bags ready for distribution to the faithful.

Mr Makoni, President Mugabe's former Finance Minister, left the party a month ago to challenge him for the presidency in the March 29 elections. When he made a joke of Mr Mugabe's totem, he got loud, derisive laughs. They clapped and cheered when he scorned the situation where a box of matches now costs Z$2 million.

Their shouts became angry ones when he told them that the members of Mr Mugabe's politburo had sent their own children to schools in Australia and Malaysia “after they have destroyed our education system”. One woman cried out: “I want to vote now!”

This is in the heart of Zanu (PF) territory, in the rough and inhospitable province of Masvingo in the south of the country, an area that Zanu (PF) proudly claims is a “one-party province”. In the last presidential election a meeting like this would have brought the villagers a lesson from the party youth, of bloodied heads and houses razed to the ground.

“This could never have happened here, not even two months ago,” said a retired civil servant, who gave his name as Albert. “Anything can happen in this election now. We cannot continue suffering.”

The next two meetings I followed on Mr Makoni's whistle-stop tour of the area proceeded without interruption. People cheered him, raised their clasped hands in his salute and, in full public view, put on free T-shirts bearing his sunny visage. “We don't want Mugabe any more,” said a thin, young mother called Esnat. “We are hungry. We have nothing. We want change.”

Wherever I went, people spoke the forbidden word, “change”. In the blink of an eye, something has happened to Zimbabwe's rural people, after nearly 30 years under Mr Mugabe's absolute rule, where the ruling party card is the key to receiving famine relief when you are starving, while dissent has meant death for hundreds.

The rural areas have, by a policy of brutal subjection and deliberate impoverishment, been made a reliable reservoir of votes for Zanu (PF) that Mr Mugabe, 84, has used to stay in power since he was first challenged in 2000.

But suddenly the web of fear and silence appears to be dissolving. Last week in the Gutu area, another Mugabe fortress about 30 miles (50km) north of here, one of the factions of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was able not just to hold rallies and draw thousands of villagers, but to see village headmen - the bailiffs of Zanu (PF)'s rural rule - denouncing Mr Mugabe and declaring allegiance to the MDC. “We gave Mugabe a chance and they failed,” said a headman, Tapurai Gudo. “Now they are asking for our support. This is the time to show that rural people are not idiots.”

In Mhondoro, about 40 miles south of Harare, senior officials of the party were astonished this week to receive a rapturous welcome from thousands of villagers in what was regarded as a virtual “no-go” area for the opposition. A national executive member, Nelson Chamisa, said: “It was humbling. These people are hungry, but many walked 12 miles to hear us.”

Human rights agencies have already remarked on the relative absence of the ruling party campaign of violence and harassment that usually begins months before voting day. The aggressive action of the police, who, a year ago, battered MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai for daring to enter a police station to ask about arrested colleagues, has also subsided.

At his meeting here, Mr Makoni told his audience that police had instructions to intimidate people into voting for Mr Mugabe. “Please, resist these pressures,” he appealed to the two officers present. They made no move to interfere with the meeting. “There is a wind of change,” said Eldred Masunungure, who directs a respected political opinion poll from Harare. “Similar reports are confirmed from all round the country. Something is unfolding.”

Since Mr Makoni declared his challenge on February 5, Zanu (PF) has shown signs of rupturing as hundreds of middle-ranking members - but only a handful of senior officials - abandon the party to back Mr Makoni. Nine months of talks mediated by the South African President, Thabo Mbeki, between Zanu (PF) and the two factions of the MDC, produced only marginal concessions from Mr Mugabe, but nonetheless appear to have imposed restraint on the ruling party. Added to that is the staggering depth of the economic crisis and the critical food shortages.

“But it really is too early to write Mugabe's political obituary,” cautioned Mr Masunungure. “That would be wishful thinking. There are many who think what is happening is the calm before the storm.”

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