Zimbabwe opposition re-elects Tsvangirai

HARARE - Zimbabwe's main opposition party has re-elected veteran leader Morgan Tsvangirai after he called for mass action to ratchet up the pressure for change on President Robert Mugabe's government.

Delegates of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) from all 12 of Zimbabwe's provinces, plus the party's youth and women's wings, endorsed a new term for Tsvangirai at the end of a two-day congress. There were no challengers.

Party members also elected Thokozani Khupe, a legislator from southern Matabeleland as the new party vice-president, and prominent Harare lawyer Tendai Biti as secretary-general.

They join a new leadership team which analysts say will make the running in the party's battle with Mugabe and its stand-off with rival MDC members who recently formed their own faction after a split in the party.

The congress backed a call by Tsvangirai on Saturday for a wave of protests against Mugabe, saying Zimbabwe had become a failed state under his rule "with its economy deteriorating faster than a country at war."

"Congress hereby mandates the leadership to formulate and implement a comprehensive democratic resistance program to pressure the regime to resolve the national crisis," it said.

Tsvangirai, addressing 15,000 congress delegates on Saturday, urged Zimbabweans to launch a "cold season of peaceful democratic resistance" against Mugabe's rule, saying only sustained mass protests could overcome government brutality.

There has been no immediate government reaction to Tsvangirai's call, but the authorities have routinely deployed security forces to crush political protests.

Tsvangirai, 54, said on Sunday that the country could not expect a miracle and Zimbabweans must overcome any fear to break what he called Mugabe's dictatorship. "The bottom line is that we must rise and confront what is before us," he said.

"I promise to lead from the front. I promise to use all available resources and will-power to see off the tyranny," he said after a day-long voting session.

In a dramatic reminder of the economic crisis gripping the country, the congress venue - a Harare indoor stadium - was plunged into darkness for an hour on Sunday night by the electricity rationing program forced on the government by a chronic energy shortage.

Tsvangirai and his lieutenants huddled round lights provided by a diesel-powered electricity generator as Biti, in his role as new secretary-general, read the conference resolutions to delegates, who cheered as they sat in the near-darkness.

The conference formally expelled from the MDC some of the party's founders, including 18 members of parliament, who broke from the party in a bitter dispute over tactics in the struggle against Mugabe.

The split followed a call by Tsvangirai, who has led the party since its founding in 1999, for a boycott of the election for a new Senate which he said was aimed at consolidating Mugabe's hold on power.

A splinter group, led by MDC Deputy President Gibson Sibanda and Secretary-General Welshman Ncube, accused Tsvangirai of dictatorship and last month elected former student activist Arthur Mutambara as its leader.

Political analysts say Tsvangirai's new leadership team reflects his uncompromising approach and could lead the party into fresh confrontation with Mugabe's ZANU-PF, which has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980.

The MDC challenge to ZANU-PF has been weakened by the split in its ranks. Tsvangirai says ZANU-PF has rigged three main elections in the past six years to stay in power.

Zimbabwe is wrestling with shortages of food, fuel and foreign currency, unemployment over 70 per cent and the highest inflation rate in the world, stemming from an economic crisis many critics blame on Mugabe's government.

- REUTERS