20091211

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe on Friday condemned internal fighting over leadership posts, saying this was tearing apart his ZANU-PF party and emboldening its opponents.

Mugabe was forced to share power with rival Morgan Tsvangirai in February after an election stalemate last year, which saw ZANU-PF lose its majority in parliament for the first time to Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

A fierce battle over who will eventually succeed the 85-year-old leader -- now in the twilight of a political career spanning more than half a century -- threatens the future of the former liberation movement, although a split is not imminent.

"The reason why we lost last year was because of factions in many provinces. This is how the party has suffered damage," Mugabe told thousands of supporters at a ZANU-PF congress which opened in Harare on Friday.

"The party is eating itself up. The more intense the internal fighting is, the greater opportunity we give to the opposition to thrive," said Mugabe, who read only briefly from a prepared speech he said was too long.

Mugabe will get the nod to lead the party for another five years but tensions are running high over what members see as the imposition of weak candidates to serve in the policy-implementing central committee.

By balancing competing factions and through a political patronage system, the veteran leader has kept a tight grip on ZANU-PF since becoming party leader in the mid-1970s and spearheading a guerrilla war against white minority rule.

Mugabe is unlikely to contest the next election, expected in 2013 if the coalition government lasts its full five-year term, and his lieutenants have stepped up an internal fight for prime positions to take over the party when he retires.