Mugabe calls for succession debate

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, in power for 23 years, has called for an open debate on his succession within the ruling ZANU-PF party. Addressing a rally on Thursday in Mount Darwin, 150 km northeast of the capital, Harare, Mugabe said debate should be encouraged instead of party leaders campaigning clandestinely. "You must debate succession. We want to be true and open to each other and discuss as a united people," the official The Herald newspaper quoted him as saying. Mugabe won disputed elections in 2003 and his term does not expire until 2008. However, as Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis deepens, there has been speculation that he could step down early and hand over to an as yet unnamed successor. It remains unclear how Mugabe's invitation for debate will be answered by political rivals within the party. "It's like some big patriarch standing in the middle of the courtyard and saying 'I know people have been whispering against me, come out and tell me!' Of course nobody is about to say anything, it's intimidatory," Everjoyce Win, spokesperson for the Crisis in Zimbabwe Committee told IRIN. "If one wants to be charitable, you could say that it now means that people could come out into the open to talk about succession, something they previously couldn't do - that's the most optimistic way of looking at it." The Crisis in Zimbabwe Committee is an NGO grouping concerned with issues of governance and human rights. Amid reports of political manoeuvrings and regional pressure for a settlement that would centre on Mugabe standing down, Win said civil society would be opposed to a backroom deal that did not take into account the interests of Zimbabwean people. Win, a women's movement leader explained: "We are saying we have a different framework - it's more than the tussle for power between two parties, but a larger governance agenda."