JOHANNESBURG: Zimbabwe’s fractured opposition party is preparing to join forces behind a single slate of candidates headed by long-time leader Morgan Tsvangirai in elections scheduled for March, according to party officials.

The decision sets up a rematch between Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since the end of white supremacist rule in 1980. Mugabe beat Tsvangirai in 2002 in an election that international observers said was marred by violence and profoundly skewed in favour of the ruling party. Mugabe’s party also defeated Tsvangirai’s in the 2005 parliamentary elections.

Tsvangirai’s party, the Movement for Democratic Change, split that same year, and he has struggled ever since to regain his role as the unquestioned leader of opposition forces. A reunion between the party’s two factions would improve its chances of mounting a serious challenge to Mugabe.

“There’s an understanding, a realisation that every vote must count, and there is strength in unity,” said Nelson Chamisa, spokesman for Tsvangirai’s faction of the party. “The election in 2008 is crucial for this country.”

The party’s other faction has not formally embraced Tsvangirai’s candidacy but has accepted that his wing of the party will select a presidential nominee as part of a unified slate, said spokesman Gabriel Chaibva. He expressed no objection to Tsvangirai being that nominee.

“We have had absolutely no problem with even reunification of the party,” Chaibva said.Tsvangirai, a former trade unionist, helped form the Movement for Democratic Change in 1999 and has long been its most visible leader. He was charged with treason in 2002 – but later exonerated – and was beaten severely by Mugabe’s police force in March, along with dozens of other party activists.

Yet Tsvangirai also has faced persistent doubts about his leadership style and capacity to plot a strategy to remove Mugabe despite massive political unrest that has seen millions of Zimbabweans flee the country, mostly to South Africa.

Leaders of the party’s other faction, led by former robotics professor Arthur Mutambara, have accused Tsvangirai of authoritarian tendencies, echoing charges they long have leveled against Mugabe.

Political analysts also have noted that Tsvangirai has had difficulty organizing meaningful mass protests against Mugabe’s government as it has grown steadily more repressive.

“I don’t believe that Morgan Tsvangirai has the wherewithal to lead a vibrant, broad-based opposition,” said Trevor Ncube, owner of the Zimbabwe Independent and the Standard, two of the nation’s few newspapers not under government control. “He’s not a unifying factor.”

Zimbabwe’s long decline began soon after the formation of the Movement for Democratic Change. Mugabe oversaw often-violent invasions of white-owned commercial farms beginning in 2000. Political freedom gradually has dwindled since then, with opposition meetings broken up by force and independent newspapers closed down.

Rampant hyperinflation has decimated a once-thriving industrial and agricultural economy and undermined a school system regarded as among the continent’s best. Many Zimbabweans spent this Christmas in line, seeking to swap old currency for new amid a mounting cash shortage. Such basics as sugar and cooking oil have disappeared from the shelves of most stores.

South African President Thabo Mbeki has taken the lead within the region in seeking to resolve the crisis, deploying what he calls “quiet diplomacy”. Jacob Zuma, who toppled Mbeki as leader of South Africa’s ruling party last week, has said there will be no change of policy toward Zimbabwe.

Leaders of both of Zimbabwe’s opposition party factions have been meeting regularly in Pretoria with Mugabe’s justice minister, Patrick Chinamasa, at the behest of Mbeki and other South African leaders.

Those discussions recently deadlocked over several issues, including the membership of the electoral commission and international observer missions for the election.—Dawn/ The LAT-WP News Service (c) The Washington Post