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Makoni joins race to succeed Mugabe
Tuesday, October 03 2006 @ 12:08 AM BST
Contributed by: Zimdaily

FORGOTTEN Minister of Finance, Simba Makoni is likely to bounce back into the race to succeed the ageing ZANU PF leader, and Zimbabwe™s president for 26 years.

Authoritative sources close to the goings on at Shake Shake building, a nickname for the party™s headquarters in Harare said yesterday that the Emmerson Mnangagwa-led Zanu Pf faction was courting Makoni to become its candidate for the race to succeed Mugabe.

If the plan succeeds, Makoni will join the likes of Vice President Joice Mujuru and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, R.B.Z. governor, Gideon Gono in the race to succeed Mugabe, whose prospects of stepping down appear to be getting slimmer and slimmer by the day. At the weekend, some Zanu PF officials were quoted in the media as saying there was need for the party, at its congress, to endorse the change of the party™s constitution, which at the moment recognises Mugabe as its president until 2009, when the party holds its congress to elect a new leadership.

While a lot has been said of Mugabe™s step-down in 2008, recent developments within the party are pointing a different picture altogether. Efforts to doctor the constitution to allow Mugabe to stay on until 2010 are said to be at an advanced stage and should this sail through, the changes would also be effected in the country™s constitution which is expected to be rubber stamped by parliament as the party is in control of the proceedings in Parliament. Sources said all the maneuvers at play to delay the 2008 parliamentary elections to 2010 were a ploy by the party to find a suitable candidate who would stand against any opposition candidate in the presidential election.

Although the Movement for Democratic Change has not made its candidate for the watershed poll known, there is a high likelihood, from the situation on the ground that the opposition party would go for another candidate other than Morgan Tsvangirai. œThe party (Zanu PF) is dilly dallying on the issue of the presidential polls because they are still looking for a candidate who would stand for the party in either 2008 or 2010. œThey are still looking for a candidate that they will put forward and that candidate should be acceptable to the people and not to party supporters and sympathizers like has been the tradition all along. And from the look of things, the only person who is acceptable to the people of Zimbabwe is Makoni. All the other candidates, yes, they can be pushed forward, but Makoni seems to be the only person whom people can accept without any problems, said the source.

Makoni, resigned in a policy row with Mugabe™s government, a development that saw Mugabe leave him out of his cabinet at a time when he had tried to persuade him to return into the fold.
Makoni was later labeled œa spineless man alongside Industry and International Trade minister, Nkosana Moyo who also tendered his resignation over the same issue. œMnangagwa and his allies are trying to coax Makoni to join them as a member but the clever guy is still counting his chickens. He would like to be their candidate but the problem is that he does not want to be part of the gang that Mugabe would condemn to be trying to scuttle his plans of leaving someone he trusts in the Zanu PF power. So he is calculative and has probably read the Zanu PF politics well, said the source.

Source: Zimdaily
URL: http://www.zimdaily.com/news2/article.php?sto…/p>