Zanu-PF broke and surviving on overdrafts

Zanu-PF is broke and President Robert Mugabe is under growing pressure from within his party ranks to quit ahead of the next crucial elections because of his chequered record.

Information obtained by the Sunday Times this week shows Zanu-PF is virtually broke and is losing members dramatically. It will have to rely on donations from its fatigued funders to finance its annual conference in Bulawayo in December.

The party needs about $4-million for the conference.

Zanu-PF officials told the Sunday Times that Mugabe was under irresistible pressure to retire ahead of the elections. The party wants him to tell delegates at the Bulawayo conference he will not be available as the Zanu-PF presidential candidate and to put in place a succession process which will ensure the party has a new candidate for the polls in 2013.

"Given the current untenable situation, the president finds himself in trouble due to many problems around him. It would be better for him to indicate in Bulawayo that he would not be available as a candidate in the next elections," a senior Zanu- PF politburo member said.

"That would allow us to convene an extraordinary congress next year to choose a new leadership and resolve the succession issue which has damaged the party so much through factionalism and infighting."

Zanu-PF has been torn apart by internal strife fuelled by the rival factions led by Vice-President Joyce Mujuru and Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Both factions want Mugabe to go. This was clearly exposed in secret United Stated diplomatic cables dispatched from Harare to Washington by successive ambassadors and contained in the WikiLeaks documents .

Mugabe has been shocked and paralysed by the WikiLeaks revelations, despite claims by his spokesman George Charamba that he was not surprised because he knew about secret meetings between Zanu-PF officials and American diplomats, timelive reported Sunday.

The disclosures that almost everyone in the Zanu-PF hierarchy wanted him to quit have renewed calls for him to pack his bags and go before the next elections.

According to the Zanu-PF constitution, the annual conference's main function is to "declare the president elected at congress as the state presidential candidate of the party" in the next elections.

Senior Zanu-PF officials want Mugabe to use the opportunity to quit and allow the party to elect a new leadership and candidate for the elections.

Over the past decade, Zanu-PF relied on the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe for survival. The bank printed money each time there was a crisis.

Senior Zanu-PF officials told the Sunday Times this week the party had a bank balance of less than $5000, which is not enough to fund its Bulawayo conference, let alone the next elections. The party is currently persuading local businessmen and sympathisers to secure funding for its activities.

Officials said the party was not getting enough from Chiadzwa diamond deals to fund its activities because those with access to the gems were more concerned about lining their own pockets.

Although Zanu-PF gets a parliamentary allocation like all parties represented in Parliament, the money is inadequate to meet its financial demands.

Zanu-PF spokesman Rugare Gumbo admitted on Friday that the party was struggling to raise funds. "We don't have money, we are always battling to do some fund-raising. We appeal to all our friends, supporters and sympathisers to support us," he said. "We have a fund-raising committee which is always trying to get funds but it's very difficult."

The late party treasurer David Karimanzira told the annual in conference in Mutare last December that it was broke and losing members. He said Zanu-PF had a $3.4- million debt and was surviving on bank overdrafts - attracting a staggering $1-million in interest. He said for the first time in 30 years Zanu-PF was struggling to pay its 180 workers and had frozen 142 posts. Last year's conference cost $3.3-million.