Word: pf
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...mediator between the government and the opposition, but Mbeki told the Financial Times, "Whether we succeed or not is up to the Zimbabwean leadership. None of us in the region has any power to force the Zimbabweans to agree." The next day Zimbabwe's ruling party, the Zanu-PF, endorsed Mugabe as its candidate for the 2008 presidential election...
Within Zimbabwe itself the tectonic plates have been shifting. Toward the end of last year the divided opposition called a truce to work together under the banner of the Save Zimbabwe Campaign. More significantly, Mugabe's own ruling zanu-PF party has begun to split as potential successors become impatient for power. After years of playing off one faction against another, there is now no credible successor whom Mugabe can trust to allow him to retire in peace. He rules now through the Joint Operation Command made up of senior army, police and intelligence officers...
This isn't how Mugabe had planned it. A resolution proposed at his party's conference last December would have harmonized the timing of parliamentary and presidential elections, allowing him to rule until 2010. Instead, his potential successors united, and the resolution was dropped from the agenda. Recently zanu-PF dissidents have been meeting the opposition parties, and have blocked their leader's attempts to call a state of emergency that would allow him to cancel all elections. That means there will be a presidential poll next year. Will Mugabe be the zanu-PF candidate? The very fact that this...
Zimbabwean people don’t buy this. Ask most passerbys what they think about President Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party and they’ll whisper urgently, “Be quiet!” They are all afraid of “getting into politics” and being marked as oppositional. Young people who criticize the government are called “sell-outs” and “white-sympathizers.” Roaming thugs beat them or send them on to the cops who, on a bad day, can lock...
...then multiplied through leveraging rhetoric in the petty tiffs of daily life. Take two teenage boys fighting over a girl at a bar. Boy number one takes boy number two aside and says, “I heard what you said about our president. You should be careful, ZANU-PF is a large party, and we wash out poisons like you.” Neither boy belongs to ZANU-PF—in fact, both probably hate the party—but boy number two will leave the club terrified and alone, while boy number one will get the girl...