As a five-yearly party congress opens in Harare today, Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF finds itself mired in internal divisions like never before. Rival factions within the party are jostling for posts in Zanu-PF's "presidium" leadership. Mugabe, who has ruled impoverished Zimbabwe — once known as the breadbasket of Africa — since the end of white minority rule in 1980, has so far held the party together by playing off factions against each other and through a system of political patronage.
There is no consensus candidate for the post of party leader, and there are no signs that Mugabe's grip on the party is beginning to slip. Though Zanu-PF knows it faces a drubbing in the next general election, likely to be held in 2011, it takes comfort in the fact that it is in control of the state security apparatus, including the army, which gives it a support base. This has helped the party ward off the challenge from Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change.
But the succession battle is bound to weaken the party. The best service Mugabe can do for his country and his party is to announce his resignation date, and enable the party to reform — or it risks becoming irrelevant.