It was simply impossible to dislodge Mr Mugabe — and so long as he was there any change was out of the question. The lengths to which he went to cling to power after elections this year in which he and his Zanu-PF party were patently beaten showed what Zimbabweans were up against. The government was finally forced to surrender its majority in parliament, but Mr Mugabe himself hung on, eventually negotiating a power-sharing deal with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, every clause of which he subsequently evaded.

One reason, perhaps the only reason, why Mr Mugabe was able to flout the judgement of his people for so long was the alliance he had sealed with the military and the veterans — his former comrades-in-arms against the white minority regime of Ian Smith. Now, it seems, that alliance may be dissolving. Police used tear gas to disperse dozens of soldiers running riot through Harare, smashing shop windows, looting and shouting “Enough is enough”. The protest represented an unprecedented breakdown of the hitherto united front between the Zanu leadership and the military. With a cholera epidemic raging and much of Harare without water, it is hard to see how much longer Mr Mugabe’s power can endure.

From a leader in ‘The Independent’