TWO months before Zimbabwe’s parliamentary elections, President Mugabe appears to be losing his grip over the party he has controlled for 31 years.

Mr Mugabe, 80, is struggling to suppress an unprecedented outbreak of infighting and dissent within Zanu (PF).

A purge of dissidents has cost him the figures who controlled the party’s machine of violent intimidation, fraud and propaganda. It has left a pliant but second-rate old guard to run the election campaign.

“Mugabe is now a leader of a faction, not the leader of the party or the country,” claimed Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

Zanu (PF) said yesterday that the process of choosing its 120 candidates for the March elections — supposed to have taken one day — would be finalised on Saturday, two weeks after the process began.

Contestants have deployed mobs of youths to attack each other, and in Harare riot police had to break up the clashes.

Didymus Mutasa, the Anti-Corruption Minister, led a three-day rampage against his challenger, leaving a trial of smashed limbs, burnt-out cars and ransacked homes.

To get their names on to the list, party heavyweights scattered money and food among Zanu (PF)’s poorgrass-roots supporters. Joseph Made, the Agriculture Minister, was reported to have ordered the distribution of maize seed and fertiliser from government stocks. Paul Mangwana, the Social Welfare Minister, reportedly set fire to ballot papers when he saw he was losing.

The selection process was preceded by a purge of senior party officials after Mr Mugabe discovered a plot to foil his plan to make Joyce Mujuru, the loyal head of the party women’s league, the party’s vice-president, thereby ensuring he can manipulate the transfer of power whenever he retires.

The dissidents’ scheme to promote Emmerson Mnangagwa, Zanu (PF)’s godfather figure and the Parliament’s Speaker, in Ms Mujuru’s place was the first organised resistance to Mr Mugabe since 1977, when he put down a rebellion among his guerilla leaders.

Those purged included Jonathan Moyo, the Information Minister, whose propaganda has been critical to Mr Mugabe; Patrick Chinamasa, the Justice Minister and architect of much repressive legislation; and Jabulani Sibanda, head of the notorious movement of guerilla war veterans.

“It’s very doubtful whether Zanu (PF) will be able to put in place the same kind of infrastructure of violence that characterised the two previous elections,” said Eliphas Mukonoweshuro, a political commentator. “The people Mugabe has dismissed got to their positions because they had some support. They would also have discussed their plans with their party structures before they defied Mugabe.”

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