Harare — As Zimbabwe was burying Chenjerai Hunzvi, the man credited with waging a violent campaign against white farmers and opposition supporters since the pre-election period last year, the recent spate of VIP deaths and other mishaps in the ruling Zanu PF has left many wondering whether the party is now cursed.

For a party still smarting from the loss of 57 parliamentary seats to the opposition, to lose three ministers, two dying in road accidents with the third quitting in a huff, all in a space of less than two months, is no little loss. As if that was not enough, last week threw yet another blow to the grieving party through the death of its chief violent campaign architect, Chenjerai Hunzvi.

This unprecedented sequence of disasters for Zanu PF over the last few months has certainly set tongues wagging, considering that death seems to be robbing President Mugabe of his key henchmen on whom he was relying to win next year's presidential election through hook or crook.

Speaking at Hunzvi's burial on Friday Mugabe summed up his devastation saying: "Fate has been most unkind to us hitting us where it hurts most at a time when our land-based third Chimurenga is at its most critical juncture."

The hardworking and dynamic campaign organiser, Border Gezi, killed in a car crash in Mvuma, had created a slush fund within his ministry of youth, gender and employment creation that was used to pay election bribes in municipal polls and parliamentary by-election.

Mugabe had been counting on Gezi to use this fund and other Gezi antics to get him re-elected as president next year.

Then the minister of industry and international trade, Nkosana Moyo, quietly shipped himself and his family to safety in South Africa before announcing he had resigned from cabinet on the grounds that Mugabe's policies had made his job impossible.

Moyo was one of those technocrats who would give Mugabe's band of otherwise violent hangers-on a somewhat professional outlook.

Then the defence minister, Moven Mahachi, was killed in another car accident. Mahachi, an unconditional loyalist, was responsible for the detention and torture of The Standard editor, Mark Chavunduka and chief writer Ray Choto over a coup plot story.

Zanu PF's latest experience reads something like a book of doom as summed up by the speaker of parliament and Zanu PF stalwart, Emmerson Mnangagwa, following the death of Moven Mahachi.

Said Mnangagwa: "We don't know what is hitting us... It's not natural. Something else must be happening... We fear the hand of Lucifer is at work."

Mnangagwa's quote brings to the fore the hysteria that the party's perceived bad luck has brought within its ranks. The height of this hysteria is the belief that the opposition Movement for Democratic Change has hired a powerful South African sangoma to cast a bad spell on Zanu PF.

There is now a growing belief among President Mugabe and his followers that he and his government have become the victims of black magic, and that bad luck follows them at every turn.

The MDC had earlier persuaded a court to set aside several election results because widespread violence by Mugabe's party meant they had not been free and fair.

The judge brave enough to reach this decision had to resign the next day, but a legal precedent had been set for MDC challenges in more than two dozen other seats.

Among Zanu-PF's often superstitious supporters, the greatest impact has come from the deaths of Gezi and Mahachi and the news that Hunzvi, the war veterans' leader who led the invasions of white farms, had collapsed.

Conscious that his macho image was on the line, Hunzvi is said to have discharged himself a few days later, but collapsed again and was put back in hospital, where he died from cerebral malaria a couple of days later.

On the streets of Harare, the word is that all this is the work of a powerful sangoma (witchdoctor) the MDC is said to have brought from South Africa- a rumour the opposition laughs at.

But such superstition has permeated even the educated elite.

When Mugabe approached several leading businessmen about taking over the trade ministry, he was turned down. "To get involved with Mugabe is to invite bad luck into your life," said one.

Although Mugabe is notionally a Catholic, he has increasingly fallen back on the tribal religions that many Zimbabweans combine to a greater or lesser degree with Christianity.

Mugabe's supporters are vocal in their traditionalist beliefs. The war vets have their own spirit medium, Sekuru Mushore, whose dictum is that 'those who die killing a white man will have no sin before Jehovah'.

Mushore has his troubles with the law because he openly insists that using marijuana and having sex with young women are legitimate parts of the rituals he performs.

Similarly, many of Mugabe's rural supporters belong to the vaPastori church, whose followers proclaim a brand of Christianity but are frequently caught up in witchcraft rituals.

But Mugabe's encouragement of tribal religion and scorn for the modern world has now rebounded on him, for his authority and air of invulnerability has been badly dented by the 'black magic' explanations for his run of bad luck.