Zimbabwe's war veterans are camped outside the conference hall of a critical congress of the ruling ZANU-PF party this week, determined that President Robert Mugabe, 83, stays in office until he retires.

Mugabe, who has led the party since 1977, seemed on the ropes 12 months ago. Last year's congress refused to endorse a resolution for him to remain in power beyond the end of his term in 2008. Moreover, Zimbabwe's economic and humanitarian crisis spelled electoral doom for ZANU-PF, and his rivals knew that only with Mugabe gone would the international community consider bailing the country out, analysts said.

But Mugabe seems to have succeeded in turning the tables on internal dissent, led by wealthy, regionally based political heavyweights, and analysts predict that he will almost certainly be elected party leader and candidate in next year's elections at the extraordinary congress this week.

Mugabe's political comeback owes much to his alliance with the veterans and, more recently, the party's youth and women's leagues. Immediately after last year's congress the veterans began a campaign of pro-Mugabe "solidarity marches" to mobilise local party support, culminating in a "Million man and woman march" on 30 November in the capital, Harare, which ZANU-PF politicians could not ignore.

"The war veterans are being used to intimidate those opposed to the president, and that is a sign that he is not wanted anymore by his colleagues in the ruling party. They are an informal structure being used as storm troopers," said Pedzisayi Ruhanya, programmes manager of the pro-democracy civic group, Crisis Coalition in Zimbabwe.

"We will oppose all renegades and counter revolutionaries," chairman of the veterans, Jabulani Sibanda, told IRIN. "We have confidence in our leader and we believe the suffering being experienced is to be expected, because he is reversing unfair economic structures, which, in the past, benefited a few colonial settlers."

Zimbabwe is in its seventh year of recession. It has the world's highest rate of inflation, eight out of 10 people are unemployed, there are shortages of most basics, from food to fuel, and the country's once impressive social indicators seem stuck in reverse. Yet ZANU-PF, under Mugabe, will head into elections, tentatively scheduled for March 2008, riding high.

The chiefs in the countryside, ZANU-PF's heartland, have remained loyal. They control their areas, dispensing food aid, agricultural inputs and patronage - allegedly on a partisan basis - and intimidation means that the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has failed to effectively mobilise in the rural areas.

The MDC is in disarray, split into two main factions, and analysts argue that the likelihood of voter apathy would boost ZANU-PF's electoral advantage.

Zimbabwe's unreformed electoral machinery is also likely to work in the ruling party's favour. A constitutional amendment agreed to by the MDC in September has increased the number of constituencies from 120 to 210 elected seats, but the electoral commission has gone ahead with delimitation without the guarantees of impartiality that the MDC demanded.

Laws limiting public assembly and free speech, described by human rights groups as undemocratic, have not been repealed. "The main issue is that Mugabe is now looking at self-preservation by dying in office, in order to avoid being arraigned before international criminal courts," commented Prof Gordon Chavunduka, former vice chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe.

"But the issue is much bigger than Mugabe," said the Crisis Coalition's Ruhanya. "Even if Mugabe was replaced today, as long as the next leader inherited the existing political structures, with a culture of violence and intolerance, then we might create somebody even worse than Mugabe. What is needed is a democratisation of all state institutions and the political parties themselves."