Zimbabwe's Senate Polls Ring Death Knell For Opposition

[Jacuma]

Elections to a new senate in Zimbabwe this weekend appear to
have sounded the death knell for a party that posed the
stiffest challenge to President Robert Mugabe's uninterrupted
rule since the country's independence in 1980.

The elections due on Saturday have exposed deep divisions in
the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party and
chances of two feuding factions reconciling have grown
slimmer in the run-up to Saturday's polls.

The six-year-old party - considered the biggest threat to
Mugabe's rule - has been rocked by bickering after
disagreements on contesting the controversial senate
elections.

The party's woes started on October 12 when MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai overrode a decision of the party's supreme
decision-making body, the national council, to take part in
the controversial polls.

But a section of the party led by vice president Gibson
Sibanda and powerful secretary general Welshman Ncube, stuck
by the national council's decision and nominated some 26
candidates, later sacked by Tsvangirai.

Tsvangirai, along with the MDC's national chairman Isaac
Matongo, is leading a faction of the party that is vehemently
opposed to the senate elections, arguing it is an ill-timed
and expensive exercise which comes against the backdrop of a
countrywide food and economic crisis.

Sibanda, Ncube, deputy secretary general Gift Chimanikire and
treasurer Fletcher Dulini-Ncube are leading the pro-senate
faction.

Commentators say the elections have exposed simmering tensions
in the party over leadership.

"The issue of the senate has exacerbated the existing tensions
in the party. Those tensions were building up for a year or
so and I think they are to do with leadership style," said
professor Lloyd Sachikonye of the Institute of Development
Studies at the University of Zimbabwe.

"The senate elections have exposed inherent weaknesses within
the MDC. It will take more time for it to be the governing
party," said Lovemore Madhuku, a pro-democracy activist.

Observers say the divisions in the MDC over the polls might
raise fears that opposition politics could degenerate into
tribal politics.

"Many people have read into the ethnic dimension because most
seats have been contested in the Matabeleland region, but I
am not sure if that is the reason behind the underlying
tensions," said Sachikonye.

Tsvangirai, who has been at the helm of the party, belongs to
the majority Shona ethnic group while Sibanda, Ncube and
Dulini-Ncube belong to the minority Ndebele race.

Although Tsvangirai extended an olive branch to the party's
"dissidents" at a recent rally, the public bad-mouthing the
two camps have adopted could spell ultimate doom for the
party.

Some party lawmakers have accused Tsvangirai of dictatorial
tendencies and labelled him a lunatic with an unsatiable
appetite for money.

But analysts believe chances of the two resolving their
differences and reconciling still exist, but will be
determined by the outcome of the senate elections.

"The deciding factor now are the senate elections," said
university of Zimbabwe political science lecturer Joseph
Kurebwa.

"They will all sober up after the elections and will have time
to reflect," said Sachikonye.

Kurebwa said if the 26 opposition candidates win
significantly, they might be able to have the leverage on
which to approach the other camp.

But fears abound that an apparent lack of enthusiasm displayed
by voters so far might result in voter apathy, handing over a
crushing victory to Mugabe's ruling party.

Mugabe and his two vice presidents have in recent days been
on a campaign trail, capitalising on the divisions in the MDC
to woo support.

"It will deal a serious blow to democracy in Zimbabwe if the
main opposition party is to break up," said Kurebwa.