Mugabe's "march of a million" draws ordinary crowd

Nov 30, 2007, 17:12 GMT

Johannesburg/Harare - A bid by President Robert Mugabe to draw a vast crowd of Zimbabweans to demonstrate massive support for him and cow his opponents fell well below expectations Friday as most people chose to attend to their crisis-stricken lives.

The 'million man and woman march,' planned by Mugabe's ruling ZANU(PF) party for over a month, was meant to equal the throng of an estimated 200,000 people that gathered in Harare's Highfield township to welcome him home in 1980 at the end of a 7-year civil war for black majority rule and just before independence.

Copied from the 'million man march' organized in 1995 by Louis Farrakhan, leader of the black American militant 'Nation of Islam' movement in Washington DC, the Zimbabwean version, held at the same venue as Mugabe's heroic 1980 return, managed to collect about 10,000 people, journalists present agreed.

Veterans present in Harare in 1980 said Friday's rally came nowhere near Mugabe's return 27 years ago. 'There was a sea of people as far as the eye could see,' one said.

The numbers were also probably less than opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai could attract, without trains or buses and usually despite a hostile and often violent police presence.

'I think there were probably more people queuing for cash at the banks,' a bystander said, referring to the critical shortage of cash available, one of the array of severe difficulties facing ordinary Zimbabweans struggling under world-record inflation in the world's fastest shrinking economy.

Mugabe, held responsible for the economic meltdown, appeared in a red baseball cap and a green African print shirt with his own picture on the front. He spoke for over two hours, delivering a wandering, repetitive history of his party's 'revolutionary' background.

The low numbers Friday were despite efforts to mobilize a major chunk of the country's transport network. On a daily basis, state radio had advertised passenger train services from nearly every urban centre in the country to Harare for the march.

'We have pooled our resources to fully support this historic event,' Fanuel Masikati, spokesman for the state-owned National Railways of Zimbabwe, said.

Reports in the independent press said the railways had had to suspend critical movement of grain and coal to allow locomotives to haul passenger coaches for ZANU(PF) instead.

Commuter services in the capital Harare were also disrupted by the deployment of scores of large buses to what the ruling party calls 'the usual pick-up points' in townships where ruling-party faithful are supposed to gather to be collected to attend party functions.

Businesses in the city also suffered Friday as ruling party youths press-ganged people waiting at bus stops for transport to work, into march-bound buses carrying ruling-party flags.

Private companies outside Harare were also ordered to surrender large trucks to ferry people to the march, which meant losing their vehicles for at least three days.

Every public market was reported to have been closed Friday on ruling party orders to force vendors to join the march.

Analysts said Mugabe, 83, was taking no chances in ensuring he encounters no challengers when the ruling party holds a special congress on December 8-9. The main topic, according to party spokesmen, is to 'confirm president Mugabe as the sole candidate' in presidential elections promised for March next year.

Over the last months, Mugabe has been fighting a secret struggle against powerful factions at the top levels of ZANU(PF) trying to ease him out of power after 27-years in control.

'The march was a bad miscalculation,' said a veteran ruling party official who asked not to be named. 'It was meant to show that he had huge support, and in fact it showed that he has very little. It has undermined his position.'

At the last presidential election in 2002, Mugabe indicated he would retire in 2008, but now he has shown he is determined to press on with another term, which will end when he is 88.

Human rights groups and Western diplomats have been alarmed at the new note creeping into the language of senior pro-Mugabe mandarins in the party, calling for him to be 'president for life.'

'President Mugabe is our leader for life,' Joseph Chinotimba, deputy leader of the war veterans militia, said. 'It is only (US president George W) Bush, (former British prime minister Tony) Blair and (former Australian prime minister John) Howard who leave office. Our president has no terms, he should rule forever.'

Observers point out Mugabe comes from a line of great longevity, with his mother, Bona, dying at the age of 93.