One-Party State

Announcing a hard left turn

When black-ruled Zimbabwe was white-ruled Rhodesia, it was a bastion of conservatism and free enterprise. But last week, after four years of independence, Prime Minister Robert Mugabe, 60, declared his intention to transform the former British colony into a one-party Marxist state. The announcement was greeted with enthusiasm by the 6,000 delegates and visitors who had gathered at a race track in the capital of Harare for the first congress in 20 years of Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). The meeting was conducted in the finest leftist tradition, from rhythmic hand clapping to the playing of the Internationale. Proclaimed one banner: LONG LIVE OUR MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY!

In a three-hour address larded with ideological cliches ("the running dogs of imperialism," "the exploited class"), Mugabe pledged to make Zimbabwe a "great and prosperous nation" under Marxism and the ZANU party. He admitted that "we made some mistakes along the way, but these were honest mistakes." He mentioned organizational errors, as well as misplaced trust in party leaders who "betrayed the [ZANU] cause."

Not joining in the acclaim for Mugabe's speech were rival Black Leader Joshua Nkomo, white former Prime Minister Ian Smith and Bishop Abel Muzorewa, who served as Prime Minister during the transition from white to black rule and who has been detained without charges since November. Nkomo, whose guerrillas joined forces with Mugabe's during the struggle for black majority rule, was booted out of Zimbabwe's coalition Cabinet in 1982 for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government. "Any coercion leading to the one-party state is digging a grave for Zimbabwe and will lead to disaster," Nkomo said last month. Smith, whose Conservative Alliance holds seven of the 20 seats reserved for whites in the 100-seat House of Assembly, charged that one-party rule would "mean we are prepared to forgo our freedoms, the basic fundamental rights enshrined in the United Nations charter."

Under the constitution painstakingly negotiated with Britain before independence, Mugabe cannot alter the basic structure of the country until 1987-88. His government remains partly dependent on British financial assistance, notably to complete an ambitious land-reform program that involves resettling by next year some 162,000 homeless families on government-purchased land. But Mugabe has said that he plans to call a general election early next year, and that he would interpret a big victory as a mandate for a one-party state. Even if he can persuade Nkomo's party to merge with his own, thereby co-opting the black opposition, he will have to convince the country's 90,000 to 100,000 whites that they still have a role to play in the country.