New Opposition Leader Emerges in Zimbabwe
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
A new opposition leader emerged in Zimbabwe yesterday when a former ally of Robert Mugabe said that he would challenge him for the presidency.
In a surprise announcement in Harare, Simba Makoni, 57, a former finance minister and member of the ruling Zanu-PF party’s politburo, said that he would stand as an independent candidate in the elections due on March 29.
Mr. Makoni’s decision marks a formal split in the ruling party. He blamed the president for Zimbabwe’s “extreme hardships” and said: “I won’t be in this campaign alone. There will be many of us, a great many of us. I am not an opposition party. I am not standing in the name of any party.” Mr. Makoni, who studied chemistry at Leeds University in the 1970s and earned a doctorate from Leicester Polytechnic, is not expected to win. His candidacy could herald a new era in Zimbabwe politics.
