HARARE — Harare and other major urban centers were deserted on Monday as people mostly stayed at home after calls for anti-government protests made by a rival faction within the ranks of the ruling Zanu PF party were largely ignored.

Schools and businesses were closed as people did not turn up for the protests called by a faction of veterans of the country’s 1970s liberation war against white minority rule.

Government officials and the police had encouraged the public to ignore the protest call and go about their usual routines but many were too scared to venture out of their homes.

Security was tightened in the capital, where police dispersed a small crowd on the outskirts of the central business district.

The faction says it is against a campaign by President Emmerson Mnangagwa ’s supporters for him to extend his rule beyond 2028, when his second and final term ends.

Faction leader Blessed Geza has been using posts on YouTube to rally supporters for an “uprising” against Mnangagwa. The group is backing Constantino Chiwenga, one of the president’s deputies, to replace him.

Chiwenga, who led a coup against former president Robert Mugabe when he was still a general in the military, has not commented on Mnangagwa’s term extension bid or the protests.

Geza, also known as Comrade Bombshell, was relatively unknown before he started making calls for Mnangagwa to step down and make way for Chiwenga.

He has become a popular figure, with tens of thousands of people tuning in to his YouTube addresses. Police accuse him of treason and say they are hunting him down. Zanu PF said it has expelled him from its ranks.

“Geza is the face of war veterans who are disillusioned with Mnangagwa. In a way he is also filling the void left by the weak opposition. But he will struggle to mobilise people to his cause because they may view him as part and parcel of Zanu PF, they view this as an internal fight among former comrades,” said analyst Eldred Masunungure, who is a former politics lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe.

Mnangagwa promised democratic reforms when he took power in 2017 following a popular coup, but opposition and local and international human rights groups accuse the 82-year-old of being as repressive as Mugabe. – AP