HARARE, ZIMBABWE, DEC. 22 -- The ruling party today ignored calls to heed the collapse of Communist governments in Eastern Europe and pledged to create a one-party Marxist-Leninist state. The decision, on the final day of the four-day Patriotic Front congress, was contained in a document approved by 4,200 delegates. It restated the dream of President Robert Mugabe to transform one of Africa's few Western-style democracies into a single-party nation, which he may do next year. The party's aim is "to establish and sustain a socialist society guided by Marxist-Leninist principles but firmly based on our historical, cultural and social experience and to create conditions for economic independence, increased productivity and equitable distribution of the wealth of the nation," it said. Mugabe, who led the former white-ruled British colony of Rhodesia to independence as black-governed Zimbabwe on April 18, 1980, urged delegates to reject calls to abandon this goal in favor of multi-party democracy and a free-enterprise economy. The debate behind closed doors was "heated but healthy," said party spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira, also minister of foreign affairs. Pro-democracy groups had hoped Zimbabwe would follow other African states that abandoned radical leftist policies in line with events in Eastern Europe. Mugabe's Patriotic Front has been avowedly Marxist-Leninist since independence. The country's constitution guaranteed that Zimbabwe would be a multi-party democracy for the first 10 years of independence. After the 10th anniversary, Mugabe may ban opposition and establish a single-party state with two-thirds of the votes in Parliament.
