Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe decries factionalism and urges his party members to unite in order to defeat its coalition partner MDC. Opening the ZANU-PF's fifth National People's Congress in Harare and the first congress since losing absolute grip on power to Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Mugabe regretted the divisions in his ZANU-PF party.
This year, Mugabe was forced into a unity government with Morgan Tsvangirai, who is now prime minister, after ZANU-PF lost its parliamentary majority in the 2008 polls and the presidential race which he apparently won ended in dispute.
Addressing more than 5,000 delegates of his party on Friday, the 85-year-old leader called upon his party members to unite so that they can defeat the MDC, which he claims was created by the British in an attempt to destroy his Zanu-PF party.
He said the divisions were "eating up" his party. "The party is fighting itself. It's eating itself up," he stressed.
Mugabe and his ZANU-PF have ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980, when they took control as the magnanimous liberators from white-ruled Rhodesia.
After almost 30 years in power, the once prosperous nation is now in economic ruins, where life expectancy is only 34 and millions depend on foreign food aid to survive.