PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe last week confirmed what has already been in the public domain, neither him nor ZANU-PF has a succession plan in place, leaving what lies ahead as a guessing game.

ZANU-PF has in the past made half-hearted attempts to address the succession issue by encouraging debate on the matter to be conducted in the open. But debate on this erstwhile hot potato was closed under the pretext that it had divided ZANU-PF right through the middle.

An attempt was then made, twice for that matter, to establish a succession committee, highlighting the fact that the issue is a matter of internal concern. Again, as a result of mistrusts and divisions plaguing the party, the succession committee was disbanded before it could begin its work.

In his birthday message last week, President Mugabe said if he was to relinquish the party leadership position at this juncture divisions would intensify and his successor would be defeated at the next polls scheduled for either this year or next year.

He also said a successor would only be decided by party members when he announces plans to retire.

"I came from the people and the people in their wisdom, our members of the party, will certainly select someone once I say I am now retiring, but not yet," said President Mugabe.

In the past, he has also castigated his cabinet colleagues for consulting traditional healers in an effort to gain favour.

With the President's long political career now in its twilight zone, analysts believe his current re-election bid could be his last before he retires.

In their wisdom or lack of it, the analysts believe it is just a matter of time before the incumbent bequeaths both the country and the ZANU-PF leadership to a different person in order to concentrate on writing his memoirs.

They also warned about the dangers of not having a clear-cut succession policy saying the issue, if not handled properly, has serious implications on the stability of not only ZANU-PF, but the country as a whole.

Political analyst, Ricky Mukonza, said there are varying implications for Presi-dent Mugabe as an individual, ZANU-PF as a party and the country as a whole due to ambiguities clouding the issue.

For the ZANU-PF leader, any failure to leave the party or the country in capable han-ds could rev-erse the good that was associated with his early years in power.

Already, his legacy is a mixed bag of the good and the not-so-good, with critics saying the latter currently outweighs the good.

The other side of it is that the failure to deal with the matter has weakened ZANU-PF hence there is some merit in President Mugabe's assertion that if he quits, the party could explode or even face extinction.

The state of affairs in ZANU-PF has given rise to factions that wield almost equal power and influence. This has put the party at the risk of splitting into small and equal factions that are not capable of withstanding the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) onslaught.

"For the ZANU-PF party, it created a culture of fear of change of leadership. (President) Mugabe, as the first person to lead from being a liberation movement into a governing party, had the duty to establish and maintain systems that would ensure that the party continues to survive beyond individuals and succession is one such key element. His failure to allow for succession has over time resulted in the weakening of the party as an institution, while allowing him to become stronger than the party," said Mukonza.

On a national scale, the lack of a succession plan is also a recipe for political instability.

Over the years, there are ZANU-PF hardliners in the civil service who appear to have gained excess power hence some have even made pronouncements on their preferences in terms of political leadership, something that may haunt a post-Mugabe era.

Dhewa Mavhinga, an analyst, said if ZANU-PF is to survive, even as an opposition party in the future, it must embrace change and must immediately set in motion a leadership renewal and succession plan.

In 2008, Simba Makoni, a former ZANU-PF politburo member, ditched the party to contest against President Mugabe as an independent candidate, saying he would have liked to run as ZANU-PF's candidate, but since he could not, he was running as an independent.

Before that, Makoni had been rumoured as a potential replacement for President Mugabe.

"ZANU-PF members should be seriously concerned that their leader believes there is no-one else in the party fit to take it forward, or to win elections when pitted against Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC-T," said Mavhinga.

Be that as it may, word doing the rounds in ZANU-PF is that the incumbent could be keeping his cards close to his chest, for fear of playing his hand too early into the game.

Currently, the party has stuck to its succession doctrine based on seniority. Should this doctrine continue to be enforced, Vice President Joice Mujuru could be having one of her legs through the doorway.

But in a classified United States cable leaked by international whis-tleblower WikiL-eaks, Tourism and Hospital-ity Minister, Walter Mzembi, allegedly said President Mugabe would not be succeeded by the party's two top presidential hopefuls, Vice President Mujuru and Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa.

The minister was quoted as having said: "(President) Mugabe will not step down at the ZANU-PF conference in December (2009). He is aware of the divisions within the party and is afraid the party will fall apart in his absence. He will not support either Mnangagwa or Joice Mujuru to succeed him but is fostering a stalemate between the two with the hope that a younger successor will emerge."

In another cable, Mzembi is quoted as having said the ZANU-PF's leader's successor would come from the younger, reformist side of the party.

But should ZANU-PF eventually decide to lay down succession plans, it would not necessarily be re-inventing the wheel.

In neighbouring South Africa, former president Nelson Mandela picked a successor Thabo Mbeki when he was still in office.

In Cuba, long time ruler Fidel Castro was succeeded by his brother Raul, something which even Havana's arch-enemy, the US, said was "characterised by a remarkable degree of stability."

Taking a closer look on recent past history of African liberation parties one can conclude that political party succession plays an important role in transition politics.

The case of Tanzania's Julius Nyerere and Chama cha Mapinduzi, Kenya's Daniel Arap Moi's KANU and Jerry Rawlings of Ghana's NDC are clear pointers to the mixed political fortunes that can consequently emerge out of the failure or otherwise, to resolve succession issues.

For ZANU-PF they are faced with successfully addr-essing the succession issues and legitimising the leadership again before the Zimbabwean electorate, itself a tall order in Zimbabwe's contemporary politics.