Media Repression Set To Continue As Mugabe Stays Up Til 2010
By ZimOnline




resident Robert Mugabe will not step down at the expiry of his term in 2008 but will rule for an additional two years after three more provincial committees of his ruling ZANU PF party resolved at the weekend to extend his term to 2010.

ZANU PF, which has enough parliamentary majority to amend Zimbabwe’s Constitution to enable Mugabe to continue in office, is pushing for a constitutional amendment to postpone a presidential election due in 2008 to 2010 so it could be held together with general elections for Parliament.

The ruling party says holding simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections would cut on costs. But insiders say the move is more because of failure by bitterly opposed factions in the party to agree on a single candidate to succeed Mugabe, who will have done 30 years at the helm if he stays on until 2010.

“Holding separate elections is too expensive and we have resolved as a province that presidential, parliamentary and even senatorial elections be held at the same time,” ZANU PF spokesman for Bulawayo province Effort Nkomo said at the weekend after the provincial leadership agreed to ask a party national conference later this week to extend Mugabe’s term.

Party provincial leaders in Matabeleland South and North provinces also agreed at the weekend to support extending Mugabe’s term, bringing the number of provinces backing the call to keep the 82-year old leader in office until 2010 to six out of a total of 10 provinces.

The provinces of Masvingo, Midlands and Manicaland had earlier indicated they would push the national conference that begins next Wednesday to extend Mugabe’s term – which is now a mere formality after the majority of provinces expressed their support for the proposal.

Mugabe - accused by critics of ruining Zimbabwe’s once prosperous economy through repression and mismanagement – has not publicly commented on the moves by his party to extend his rule.

The veteran President, among the few remaining of Africa’s old style big-men rulers, had never categorically stated that he would step down in 2008. But he had indicated in a May 2004 interview with British television that he would not seek re-election at the expiry of his current term.

Under Mugabe’s charge – he first came to power at the country’s independence from Britain in 1980 – Zimbabwe has declined from being a model economy to a classical African basket case, weighed down by an economic crisis that has spawned hyperinflation, severe food shortages, record unemployment and poverty. - ZimOnline