Some in Zimbabwe’s ruling party think Mugabe should step down

HARARE, Zimbabwe – Some members of Zimbabwe’s jittery ruling elite have concluded that President Robert Mugabe must step down after apparently losing an election last weekend and have begun reaching out to opposition leaders to resolve the four-day-old political standoff, according to ruling party members, diplomats and political observers here.

Mugabe, 84, has made no public appearance since Saturday, when he pledged not to rig the results and to abide by the vote totals. But behind the scenes, his future is the subject of wrenching discussions inside his ruling party, the sources said.

Though the sources said that unofficial contacts between ruling party and opposition members were under way, opposition leaders repeatedly and vehemently denied that there were any discussions or that there would be any deal with Mugabe before the election results were officially published.

The presidential election has so far yielded no official results, and Tuesday the electoral commission, controlled by Mugabe allies, urged patience. But a growing list of indicators, including a rigorous statistical model based on a sampling of publicly posted vote tallies, now points to a victory by longtime opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, showing he got something near 50 percent of the vote, over Mugabe’s roughly 42 percent. An independent candidate got 8 percent.

“It’s clear that (Mugabe) has lost the vote,” said Dumisani Muleya, a political reporter at the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper. In interviews, several senior advisers to Mugabe had told him that “they’re trying to find some way to resolve this issue.”

Perhaps the most important group in the discussions is the leadership of Mugabe’s historically loyal security apparatus. The “securocrats,” including top members of the police, military and intelligence service, reportedly are split over whether to act to keep Mugabe in power or to urge him to accept defeat.

A retired general, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the air force chief has refused to back military action to protect Mugabe, while the police force is steadfast behind him.

Among the immediate questions is whether Zimbabwe will conduct a runoff, as required by the constitution if no candidate tops the 50 percent mark. Tsvangirai asserted Tuesday that he had passed that point in the first round, making a runoff unnecessary. But the independent monitoring group that analyzed the posted vote tallies projected his victory as falling barely short of a majority.