Harare - President Robert Mugabe's once indomitable Zanu-PF party gathers on Thursday for its annual national conference with little of substance on the agenda and the threat of cholera looming over the three-day jamboree.

The 4,000 delegates are to issued with bottled water and water bowsers will be on hand at the venue, a tiny state university in the agricultural town of Bindura, about 80 kilometres north of Harare, said party spokesman Ephraim Masawi. Delegates will also be barred from bringing food into the venue.

However, medical experts who asked not to be named said the conference was a potential catalyst for a new outbreak of the epidemic that has killed close to 1,000 people and infected over 18,000 since it began in August.

Residents in Bindura confirm that the university had been without running water since the beginning of the year, and the toilets have been out of operation for months. Authorities finally sent students home in October.

A nearby high school in whose classrooms most delegates are due to accommodated, is also without water, the sources said.

"It's madness to bringing together a crowd that size," said e medical source. "Many of the people attending will be from urban townships where the epidemic is at its worst. It's almost a certainty that people with cholera will be there, mingling, shaking hands, sharing food."

Last week Mugabe declared that authorities had "arrested" the epidemic, an assertion that was met immediately with vigorous denial from the World Health Organisation and aid agencies.

In November, authorities banned Zanu-PF's hated opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change, from holding a rally in Harare, citing "a danger of the spread of cholera."

Cholera is the latest crisis to hit Zimbabwe, already dogged by widespread hunger and the collapse of state services.

The party conference takes place amid rumblings of growing discontent within Mugabe's clique.

Several incidents of rioting and looting by soldiers in Harare recently exposed serious levels of indiscipline and discontent.

Within Zanu-PF itself, there are open signs of rebellion. At this week's elections for the leadership of the party's Harare province, the most important in the country, factional violence broke out.

The state-controlled Herald reported that youths from one faction stoned police trying to keep order. The leadership of one faction had to flee on foot.

In the western provinces of Matabeleland, almost the entire Zanu--PF membership is rumoured to have deserted out of discontent, leaving a threadbare hierarchy.

The shooting in the hand of air force commander Perence Shiri at the weekend, coming after the death in a car accident of another senior party official, have also stoked speculation of spiralling Zanu-PF infighting.

Mugabe's regime has accused the MDC of training youths in Botswana for "banditry" - claims rejected by Zimbabwe's neighbours in the Southern African Development Community as to be taken "with a pinch of salt".

The MDC has lashed back, saying violence involving Zanu-PF members is likely caused by the party's unresolved succession issue.

Mugabe has ruled with a vice grip for nearly 29 years. Ever since his authority and popularity began to be questioned in the mid-1990s, discussion about when he will retire and who will replace him have been firmly quashed.

"This is a nationalist party that is now exhausted and tired," said Nelson Chamisa, spokesman for the MDC, which dealt Zanu-PF its first-ever electoral defeat in elections this year.

"Zanu-PF has failed to renew and refresh itself and those who have been controlling it since time immemorial have failed to pass on the baton," he said, adding: "When this happens, the revolution begins to eat its own children."

At public appearances over the last week, the smooth-faced Mugabe looked as if he had aged rapidly. He appeared haggard, anxious - but as grimly determined as ever.