HARARE, ZIMBABWE — Everything you'd expect to find in the office of a senior official in Zimbabwe's ruling party was there: the dominating portrait of President Robert Mugabe, the yellowing photos of liberation martyrs and heroes. The only discordant note was in the words of the official himself.
"People loved Mugabe. We loved Mugabe."
Past tense.
"We need to look for someone else," the official continued, adding that many in the ruling ZANU-PF party agree with him that it's time for the Old Man to go.
Just months ago, a conversation like this, particularly with a foreign journalist, would have been unthinkable. But Mugabe, 83, is losing powerful factions in his own party and the increasingly disaffected army, police and security forces.
The only leader Zimbabwe has known since 1980, after the end of white minority rule, he has ruled with fear and patronage. Those who fell out of favor were fired, beaten or killed, and secret police kept careful watch on perceived enemies. For much of that time, however, Zimbabwe also was among the most prosperous countries in Africa.
Mugabe started seizing land from white commercial farmers in 2000, and much of it ended up in the hands of political cronies. The move paralyzed Zimbabwe's most successful economic sector and biggest employer.
Now his country has an official inflation rate of 1,730%, the world's highest, and life expectancy is 36 years, according to World Health Organization estimates. Unemployment is about 80%. Grass grows high along potholed highways; few people can afford a bus fare, let alone gas. They gather in large groups, waiting for a lift. When a truck stops, they swarm it.
The political opposition is once more trying to mount a challenge. Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, and other opposition leaders were arrested Wednesday, a little more than two weeks after Tsvangirai was arrested and beaten.
Support fades
Even as Mugabe cracks down on the opposition, his support among core backers has evaporated as hyperinflation eats into the business interests of ruling party heavyweights and gobbles police and army wages, causing mass desertions.
"The internal problems we have got are much larger than the problems created by the MDC," said the party official. "I don't think that even the president worries about the MDC. He's much more worried about what is happening in his own party."
