Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe encouraged his ruling ZANU-PF party to openly discuss his successor today, adding to speculation that he might be considering retirement.
The veteran leader, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, first hinted in April that he was ready to relinquish power and meet the main opposition over a deepening political and economic crisis if it recognised his disputed re-election.
"The issue of my successor must be debated openly although I would urge you not to allow it to create divisions within the party," Mugabe told about 7,000 party supporters in a village 150 km northeast of Harare.
"I am well aware that there are people keen on the positionand some have even consulted traditional healers to enhancetheir chances, but I want to warn them that a successor can onlybe chosen by the people," he said in the local Shona language.
Mugabe's government has dismissed a report in the private Daily Newslast week that the international community was preparing an economic package for crisis-ridden Zimbabwe which hinges on his resigning before the end of the year.
The report came a week after the leaders of South Africa, Nigeria and Malawi met Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in a bid to resolve the country's problems of spiralling prices, shortages, low employment and unrest.
The talks added to speculation that Mugabe, 79, may be ready to retire after 23 years in power.
But today Mugabe vowed that Tsvangirai's Movement forDemocratic Change (MDC), which he accuses of being a puppet of Western nations, would only rule in the southern African state "over our dead bodies".
The MDC has launched a court challenge against Mugabe's election in March 2002 to another six-year term. Western countries and the Commonwealth condemned the poll as fraudulent.
Mugabe accuses the West of sabotaging Zimbabwe's economy as punishment for the government's seizure of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to landless blacks.