Zimbabwe ruling party endorses Mugabe

President Robert Mugabe's party nominated him as its candidate for president in voting next year, demonstrating the 83-year-old veteran's hold over the main party despite Zimbabwe's economic collapse.

During a Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front conference Thursday, all 10 of the party's provincial bodies backed Mugabe. Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980 and earlier this year thwarted challenges from internal rivals. The elections are scheduled for March.

Mugabe told his party faithful in the opening ceremony broadcast on state television and radio he would not abandon them or the people in hard times.

"Every one of them matters to me. Can I let them down? No. Their welfare is my welfare. Their suffering is my suffering," he said.

Power outages, water shortages, empty store shelves and record-setting inflation were seen as symptoms of an economic collapse Mugabe's critics link to his policies. Mugabe also is accused of an undemocratic crackdown on opponents.

At a preliminary meeting of the ruling party's 150-member central committee on Wednesday Mugabe again blamed the West for the economic crisis, state radio said in its morning bulletins.

The United States and other Western nations have imposed travel restrictions and financial sanctions on Mugabe, ruling party leaders and their families, but say foreign aid, loans and investment dried up of their own accord in seven years of political and economic turmoil in the aftermath of the government-ordered seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms that began in 2000. The black majority was to have benefited from the land seizures.