Mugabe paralysed by explosive Wikileaks cables

Independent claims that President Mugabe is paralysed over what to do following explosive WikiLeaks releases which show senior Zanu-PF and government officials, including Vice-President Joice Mujuru, have been secretly meeting American diplomats to discuss sensitive issues, including that he should go, behind his back.

The dramatic revelations in Cablegate are bound to cause a sea of changes in President Mugabe's relationships with his advisors and senior party officials named in the disclosures.

The unprecedented situation could also reconfigure the matrix of the simmering Zanu-PF succession issue, which features prominently in the secret cables dispatched from Harare to Washington by successive United States ambassadors and diplomats, mainly in the past decade, fuelling infighting and setting off seismic shifts and realignment of factions within the party.

Off the record briefings of the Independent by senior officials close to President Mugabe, including cabinet ministers and Zanu-PF politburo members, this week show that the veteran ruler is in a state of shock and paralysis due to the leaks which have left him exposed and cutting a lonely figure on shifting political sands.