Simba Makoni
Robert Mugabe
Morgan TsvangiraiSimba Makoni to stand against Robert Mugabe. A new opposition leader emerged in Zimbabwe, former ally of Robert Mugabe said that he would challenge him for the presidency. In a surprise announcement in Harare, Simba Makoni, 57, a former finance minister and member of the ruling Zanu-PF party’s politburo, said that he would stand as an independent candidate in the elections due on March 29.
Simba Makoni will stand as an independent, his decision marks a formal split in the ruling party.
He blamed the president for Zimbabwe’s “extreme hardships” and said: “I won’t be in this campaign alone. There will be many of us, a great many of us. I am not an opposition party. I am not standing in the name of any party.”
Mr Makoni, who studied chemistry at Leeds University in the 1970s and took a doctorate from Leicester Polytechnic. His candidacy could herald a new era in Zimbabwe politics.
Mr Makoni was sacked as finance minister in 2002 when he tried to devalue Zimbabwe’s currency - which has since become worthless. The decision by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change to divide into two factions has opened the way for him to become the standard bearer of opposition to Mr Mugabe, who turned 84 on Feb 21 and has been in power for almost 28 years. Morgan Tsvangirai, formerly the most prominent opposition leader, has been discredited by the MDC’s collapse and is now widely distrusted.
One MDC faction, led by Arthur Mutambara is not running for presidency, has been secretly talking to Mr Makoni and backs him. If so, he would gain votes in the two Matabeleland provinces. Zimbabwe has the world’s fastest-shrinking economy, the International Monetary Fund estimates that inflation is 150,000 per cent - the world’s highest. The government only admits to 100,000 per cent. Mr Makoni is one of the few Zanu-PF leaders who did not accept a seized farm and bought his own. Almost uniquely for someone who served in the highest levels of Zimbabwe’s regime, he is also untainted by corruption.
