Zimbabwe: at last, all prepare for elections.

After the huff and puff of recent months, Zimbabwe's unified elections are due on 29 March, and the opposition is not staging a boycott as it threatened. And, as Mabasa Sasa from Harare reports, there is even a "new" face on the cards, Dr Simba Makoni, a "dissident" from the ruling Zanu PF party who is running against his former boss, President Robert Mugabe.

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With polls to elect a president, parliamentarians and local government councillors due at the end of this month, Zimbabwe's political landscape could not be any more intriguing. Perhaps the most sensational news in the run-up to what will be a make-or-break vote for opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Professor Arthur Mutambara, is the announcement by Dr Simba Makoni (a chemistry PhD) that he would be challenging President Robert Mugabe for the top job.

A former finance minister and member of the supreme decision-making body of the ruling Zanu PF party, Dr Makoni's candidature has been viewed by many as an indicator of an internal revolt in Zanu PF. Makoni has said he would not be launching a new party and would campaign using a Zanu PF platform after putting himself forward as "another" ruling party candidate.

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His campaign has already had a rude introduction to the world of real politik as the local media has been awash with reports and editorials questioning his credentials, motives and--of course--his history.

For years, Makoni has been a darling of business and the right-leaning press. There are doubts, however, over his marketability to the majority rural electorate who have traditionally identified with President Mugabe's pro-poor policies.

The ever media-shy Makoni has strangely retreated further into a shell of sorts since making his announcement at the start of February, and the media have so far been frustrated in their efforts to get him to comment on a number of issues.

These include his tenure as chief of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), his reign as head of Zimbabwe's largest newspaper publishing house, Zimpapers, and his departure from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development.

Though it is not yet clear who exactly is behind him, Dr Ibbo Mandaza, an academic, and the retired Major Kudzai Mbudzi (who was booted out of Zanu PF for going against a key party directive) have openly stood by Dr Makoni.

Prof. Jonathan Moyo, a former information minister who was ironically also sacked from the ruling party for deciding to enter an election race as an independent, is also in the set-up. Dr Mandaza confirmed as much when saying Prof Moyo had been "consulted in some capacity".

It is also believed that a number of business personalities, some Zanu PF members and a group of Western diplomats, are backing Makoni from behind the scenes.

Interestingly, the two factions of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party have distanced themselves from the Makoni bid, though informants claim that there is a high level of consultation taking place, particularly with Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the main MDC faction who has been beaten twice at the polls by President Mugabe in the last eight years.

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However, Tsvangirai has said: "Dr Makoni has been part of the establishment for the last 30 years and has witnessed our country deteriorate to this unprecedented level. He is equally accountable as Robert Mugabe for the omissions of Zanu PF. I believe that what Dr Makoni is trying to do is to reform an institutionalised dictatorship. That is not my agenda. I am the leader of the MDC ... Dr Makoni is nothing more than old wine in a new bottle. We are divided on fundamental differences ... I have high respect for him [but] he says he is still Zanu PF. That's the difference."

But Zanu PF has said Makoni is no longer a member of the party after deciding to run against Mugabe who was unanimously endorsed by the party as its presidential candidate at an extraordinary congress in December.

Zanu PF secretary for legal affairs, Emmerson Mnangagwa, and the party's political commissar, Elliot Manyika, have both publicly declared that Makoni had "expelled himself" from the ruling party.

Analysts agree that the Makoni bid could negatively affect the ruling party but there is an emerging consensus that it is the MDC that has the most to lose from his campaign.

Ibbo Mandaza, the spokesperson for the Makoni campaign, has said they would be "targeting urban areas", which since 2000 have morphed into opposition strongholds. Makoni is not well known in rural communities where, incidentally, the largest concentration of voters resides--and from where Mugabe and Zanu PF have traditionally drawn their strongest support. This has raised the prospect of Makoni splitting the opposition's urban vote, particularly in the capital Harare.

Meanwhile, the media swell around the Makoni bid has overshadowed the news that the two MDC factions will participate in the elections despite threatening to boycott them if certain key demands were not met.

Tsvangirai's faction had been demanding that the voter registration exercise be started all over again, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission be re-constituted and, more decisively, that a whole new constitution be put in place before the elections were held.

The government responded by saying that all these demands had been catered for under the aegis of the SADC-mandated talks between Zanu PF and the MDC through the mediation of South Africa.

Justice, legal and parliamentary affairs minister Patrick Chinamasa said: "As far as we are concerned, the dialogue is still ongoing. As Zanu PF, we are committed to an irreversible process that will result in the presentation of a draft constitution for a national consultation. We would like whatever document that comes out of the national consultative process to be subjected to a referendum and if the people accept it only then will the country put in place a new constitution."

He added: "As Zanu PF, we think the people should be consulted, and that is a commitment we have made as a ruling party."

South Africa's deputy foreign minister, Aziz Pahad, has said the talks have yielded all the expected positive results and only a few "procedural" wrinkles needed to be ironed out.

"There are no longer any negotiations needed," Pahad insisted, "it's now procedural, they have agreed to everything ... it's now really procedure that the Zimbabweans themselves have to sort out."

But the Tsvangirai faction of the MDC claims the talks are dead and buried more or less, and they are now concentrating on the elections and focusing on winning the presidential race.

Talks aimed at re-uniting the two MDC factions and putting forward a single presidential candidate sensationally collapsed just before Makoni announced his bid, and this time it seems there is agreement on who is to blame for the latest setback to hit the opposition camps.

The first real attempt to heal the fracture in the opposition lasted from August 2006 to July 2007. That effort ended with Prof. Mutambara criticising Tsvangirai of negotiating in bad faith and taking other opposition elements for granted.

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At that time, it was believed that Mutambara was merely politicking, but the manner in which the latest reconciliation attempt has broken down in the full glare of the media, lends credence to claims that "Tsvangirai has little respect for his erstwhile colleagues".

According to insiders, the negotiations collapsed after Tsvangirai demanded that his parliamentary and local government candidates fill in all the available seats in Harare (except for one that Mutambara would have the privilege of contesting), as well as the majority of seats in three provinces in Matabeleland.

Tsvangirai, apparently, also wanted Mutambara to have a minority of candidates in his home province of Manicaland. Gabriel Chaibva, spokesman for Mutambara was angered by these demands and labelled Tsvangirai as a "politician who is controlled by his kitchen cabinet", and has no real appreciation of national politics.

"They think that the people of Zimbabwe are stupid," charged Chaibva, adding, "they are arrogant and think the electorate will vote for them when it is so clear that their agenda is all about self-aggrandisement and is no longer about serving the people."

In the meantime, some Zanu PF heavyweights have been dumped out of the race even before it started. Samuel Mumbengegwi, finance minister; Rugare Gumbo, agriculture minister; Aeneas Chigwedere, education, sport and culture minister; David Chapfika, deputy minister of agriculture; Edwin Muguti, deputy health minister; Kenneth Mutiwekuziva, deputy minister of small and medium enterprises; and Senator Dzikamai Mavhaire, a senior cadre in the party, all lost their places in the Zanu PF primaries.

Defence minister Sydney Sekeramayi, himself touted as a possible future state president, has been kicked upstairs to the Senate.

This means that if President Mugabe wins again, he will have a new-look cabinet since under a recent constitutional amendment, there is less room for non-elected personalities to be appointed ministers.

In terms of the threat of election-related violence, observers agree that the likelihood of such an occurrence is minimal despite public declarations by at least one leading opposition figure that Zimbabwe could expect bloodshed like that in Kenya if the vote was rigged.

This has prompted the commissioner-general of police, Augustine Chihuri, to warn those bent on violence that they would be met with the full force of the law.