PRESIDENT Mugabe’s popularity has shot up in the country as he has “won over a nation — again,” a British establishmentnewspaper conceded yesterday. The Independent, traditionally one of the President’s harshest critics over the past decade, also revealed MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai and has party had lost support.

The Independent said through “a crusading indigenisation programme, the corporate version of the land reform programme a decade ago” — President Mugabe “has suddenly, in the eyes of many Zimbabweans, regained the revolutionary credentials he earned fighting white rule in the 1970s.”

With an elections set to be held in the next 12 months, the newspaper claimed to have found firming support for President Mugabe on the ground saying his pro-people policies were bearing fruit.

“Emboldened by international sanctions, he is riding a wave of populist glory born of lots of rhetoric and a few converging realities: tens of thousands of resettled peasants have reaped bumper tobacco crops, civil servants have taken possession of thousands of hectares of redistributed farmland and national pride is back, boosted by major diamond finds,” the paper’s correspondent Alex Duval Smith wrote.

The paper says PM Tsvangirai’s MDC-T party, Zanu-PF’s main political rival, “has suffered its share of corruption scandals”.

“It has failed to reverse poverty or define itself as a reforming force within the power-sharing administration. And the indigenisation programme, despite its popularity, has divided the trade unions, the MDC’s electoral heartland,” it said.

“It is a climate in which poverty grinds on and politics boils down not to delivery but to which party makes the best promises. To many Zimbabweans, President Mugabe once again looks like the country’s best defender.”

The paper said the conclusion would sting MDC-T.

The paper said MDC-T insists that Zanu-PF’s indigenisation push — like the land reform programme before it — was only benefiting a small clique at the top and not the poor mass of voters. However, some MDC top officials are beneficiaries of President Mugabe’s empowerment programmes.

Zanu-PF points to community share schemes, which have seen large mining corporations giving away shares to local communities and employees. The party has vowed there will be no let-up as it fixes its eyes on foreign banks including Barclays, Standard Chartered and Stanbic, which have been asked to cede majority shareholding to locals.

President Mugabe has so far launched the Chegutu-Mhondoro-Ngezi and Zvimba (Zimplats), Tongogara Community (Unki Platinum Mine) and Zvishavane (Mimosa) Community Share Ownership Schemes.

Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment Minister Saviour Kasukuwere was quoted telling the Independent that: “People now understand what President Mugabe has been aiming at. He is the only politician who has clearly articulated his thoughts, unlike the other political parties who are just feeding on our people, look at the corruption in the local councils they (both factions of MDC) control.

“How can they win elections when it is clear that they are a tool, an agent? They are incompetent, corrupt characters.”

Zanu-PF is increasingly confident and there will be no use of violence, the paper admitted.

“We want peaceful, free and fair elections. Let us sell our ideas,” Minister Kasukuwere said.

He echoed similar calls by President Mugabe who has pledged to address peace rallies around the country.