TURMOIL AND INTRIGUE CONTINUE IN RUN-UP TO ZANU-PF

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 HARARE 000083

SIPDIS

AF/S FOR D. MOZENA, B. NEULING
NSC FOR SENIOR AFRICA DIRECTOR C. COURVILLE, D. TEITELBAUM

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/08/2009
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM PINR ZI ZANU PF
SUBJECT: TURMOIL AND INTRIGUE CONTINUE IN RUN-UP TO ZANU-PF
PRIMARIES

REF: (A) 04 HARARE 2090 (B) 04 HARARE 2063 (C) 04
HARARE 2001

Classified By: Ambassador Christopher W. Dell under Section 1.5 b/d


1. (C) SUMMARY: Harare's headlines continue to be dominated
by tales of intra-ZANU-PF conflicts and a spy scandal in the
run-up to the ruling party's parliamentary primaries
scheduled for January 15. Plans to reserve a quota of seats
for women appears to be the method of choice for dislodging
candidates not favored by the party leadership, but with
primaries just a day away, the party has yet to release a
slate of approved candidates. Latest reports indicate many
party moderates will join hard-liners as casualties in an
exercise that seems geared principally to perpetuate
lock-step loyalty and top-down decision-making within the
party. Political violence here continues to be principally
within the ruling party, with more ZANU-PF supporters being
arrested each week. The GOZ has announced it is finally
repossessing farms from prominent figures who received more
than one farm under land reform. Finally, the official press
identified South Africa as the government implicated in the
espionage ring, but public details about the affair remain
scant, fostering rumors that continue to fan witch-hunt
atmospherics within the ruling party. END SUMMARY.

No Candidates for Election Two Days Away
--------------


2. (C) As of January 13, ZANU-PF had yet to approve a final
slate of candidates for the party's January 15 parliamentary
primaries. State radio on January 14 announced that 48 of
the 120 districts would be contested in the primaries. The
politburo and presidium (the party's four senior figures,
including the President) reportedly had approved a final list
that would be publicly announced on the 14th.


3. (C) The nomination exercise has been hamstrung by the
intersection of a host of competing factors: fall-out from
the Tsholotsho debacle (reftels),recently announced limiting
criteria for candidates (ref A),the party's efforts to
implement a quota of thirty percent of the seats for female
candidates, and appeals by disqualified candidates. Latest
reports suggest the list of seats reserved for women will
effectively exclude not only controversial Information
Minister Jonathan Moyo, but a host of "moderates", many of
whom do not appear to have been associated with the
Tsholotsho confab.

SIPDIS


4. (C) Widespread disappointment within the party over the
selection process for primary candidates has sparked
well-publicized demonstrations, including one on January 4 at
the party's Rotten Row headquarters in which Election
Directorate head Elliott Manyika was prevented from leaving
until he pledged to consider protesters' demands.
Intra-party violence has continued to flare as well,
resulting in additional arrests (and, as with arrested
opposition figures, the speedy release) of ruling party
supporters.


5. (C) Complicating the situation has been the absence of
President Mugabe from the country through much of the
ferment; he returned January 12 from a brief official trip to
Tanzania following an earlier extended vacation in Malaysia
during late December and early January. In his public
addresses to party faithful, including an address to
protesters at Rotten Row on January 10, Mugabe urged the
party to rally behind candidates who were being selected
"according to the wishes of the people" ... within
"guidelines set by the party."

Senior Land Reform Beneficiaries Targeted
--------------


6. (C) The official press reported in early January that the
GOZ was taking back farms from senior GOZ officials who had
taken more than one farm under fast-track land reform. The
measures begin to implement recommendations for a one
person-one farm policy included in the Utete Commission
Report completed in late 2003. Officials forced to surrender
farms reportedly include Moyo, Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge,
Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo, Deputy Minister
for Gender and Youth Shuvai Mahofa, Deputy Minister of Water
Resources and Infrastructure Tinos Rusere, and former
Mashonaland West Governor Peter Chanetsa.

Spy Scandal Remains Obscure; South Africa Publicly Implicated
--------------


7. (C) After the Ministry of Information publicly admonished
the nation's media last week to cover the espionage cases
"responsibly", local coverage generally has receded from the
front page and become markedly less sensational and
speculative -- essentially limited to a chronicling of
mundane aspects of court appearances and the like. During
the past week, the official media has reported on the arrest
of an unnamed official in the Ministry of National Security
and the flight of Geneva-based diplomat, Erasmus Moyo, in
connection with the widening investigation. The official
Herald newspaper on January 14 reported without fanfare but
in a front page story that Chiyangwa allegedly had been
selling secrets to South Africa, which it implied may have
been a conduit to other governments. An earlier edition of
the Herald noted that three MDC officials were being
investigated in connection with the matter, but our MDC
contacts have been unable to confirm that.

Rumors Fuel Ferment
--------------


8. (C) The soft clampdown on espionage-related reporting has
not stopped rumors from flying and contributing to escalating
fear and loathing within the ruling party. Just before the
spy story broke, a business figure close to the party told
poloff that a rumor making the rounds in senior party circles
had Speaker of the Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa connected to
the UK's MI-5. An internet news service reported recently
that the probe was closing in on Mnangagwa, and another story
pegged Minister of State Security Nicholas Goche and Minister
for Local Government Ignatius Chombo as targets of the
investigation.


9. (C) Rumors also continue to circulate about the
Tsholotsho meeting that provoked the Old Guard crackdown

SIPDIS
against the Young Turks (reftels). Media contacts conveyed
privately to the Embassy, but have not reported publicly,)
that a meeting convened by some of the Tsholotsho
participants in Bulawayo the day before the Tsholotsho
meeting was plotting how to remove the President. The
conspiracy reportedly included Reserve Bank Governor Gono and
Security Minister Goche, and was known to President Mugabe.
A contact of questionable reliability told the DATT that
military officers were involved in Tsholotsho conspiracy,
which had amounted to the plotting of a coup.

Comment
--------------


10. (C) We have found little to substantiate these rumors
and doubt their credence. Nonetheless, they are significant
as an indication of atmospherics in a party increasingly
consumed by fear and loathing within itself. Deep individual
insecurities and innumerable conflicting personal agendas
will continue to stifle meaningful intra-party debate and
drive more blood-letting built on misinformation campaigns
and back-room plotting.


11. (C) The breadth of the effective purge underway has gone
far beyond those implicated in the pecadilloes of Tsholotsho.
While the purge of Moyo and other hardliners is welcomed by
most inside and outside the party, other casualties include
"moderate" voices, such as former Tribune publisher Kindness
Paradza; respected parliamentary chairmen Lazarus Dokora,
Charles Majange, and Paul Mazikana; and Eddison Zvobgo, Jr.,
the heir apparent to his late and widely respected father's
powerful Masvingo Karanga faction -- all of whom enjoy
relatively good rapport with the opposition and have been
useful Embassy contacts. The common denominator among the
purged is their respective independent streaks, whether
hard-line or moderate. Their replacements generally will be
individuals of little stature or resources and completely
beholden to the party leadership to whom they owe their
positions. In sum, these latest developments conform to
recent trends that aggrandize Mugabe's stature and position
at the expense of all others in the party.


12. (C) The various sources and indicia of turmoil within
the party -- the Tsholotsho debacle, the espionage imbroglio,
farm take-backs, and primaries-related conflict -- are all
relevant to Mugabe's overarching priority of imposing
discipline within the party. Nonetheless, each to some
extent has its own impetus. Thus, developments will evolve
to some extent independently, although we expect the
leadership to try to shape them to advance overarching party
objectives. However, as these interrelated and complicated
developments continue to unfold and influence one another,
the possibility grows that they will spin out of Mugabe's
control.


13. (C) The latest developments reinforce Mugabe/Old Guard
dominance and suppress independent thought in the party but
are not without risk to the ZANU-PF leadership. First, the
alienation of so many significant party leaders and activists
may diminish the party's turnout at parliamentary elections
in March. Certainly, prominent coverage of ZANU-PF's turmoil
and apparent disarray by both the official and independent
press has not reflected well on the ruling party as it seeks
to sell itself to the electorate. The party's absorption
with its own crises also has taken the heat off the MDC,
which is taking advantage of the hiatus to quietly mobilize
its campaign troops without the concentrated official
suppression efforts that hamstrung it in past elections.
Finally, the environment is gradually becoming more conducive
to the potential emergence of a third party consolidated from
disaffected elements of ZANU-PF and the MDC -- a possibility
raised by bitterly disappointed ZANU-PF members some time ago
(ref C),although such a development still seems unlikely in
the short term.

DELL