The renewal by the European Union of sanctions against Zimbabwe will stiffen the intransigence of President Robert Mugabe's government and worsen the economic crisis in the southern African country, analysts and politicians in Harare have said.

The EU is due next week to begin debating whether to maintain the sanctions, which include a travel ban on Mugabe and 71 of his top associates, imposed in February 2002, on grounds of human rights abuses and electoral fraud.

Western diplomats in the Zimbabwean capital say the sanctions are likely to be renewed and even widened to include more of Mugabe's aides.

But renewal might not achieve the desired results, and if anything could harden the government's stance, according to political scientist Joseph Kurebwa.

Kurebwa said sanctions usually had the effect of achieving a "siege psychosis.

"Instead of forcing the target regime to democratise, sanctions tend to have the opposite effect, of hardening the regime," he said.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which has argued that Mugabe stole the March 2002 presidential poll from its leader Morgan Tsvangirai, wants the sanctions maintained.

MDC vice president Gibson Sibanda said: "They (sanctions) have had an impact, they (leaders) are squealing", adding that those targeted could no longer "fly out of the country to buy luxury goods which are no longer available to everyone else".

Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) has blamed the sanctions for the country's economic crisis: inflation exceeds 600%, unemployment is above 70% and about 80% of the population lives in poverty.

But the MDC's Sibanda riposted: "There is nothing that the sanctions have done to the economy. The economy had already melted down. The sanctions are aimed at individuals".

Kumbirai Kangai, a member of Zanu-PF's decision-making politburo, said sanctions - which have also been imposed by Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, and the US - "have done damage to the country", but not the leaders they were intended to punish.

"In fact the sanctions hurt most the average person. They are meant to hurt leaders, but far from it. The leaders still... move without much inconvenience," he said.

The Commonwealth, which groups mainly former British colonies, suspended Zimbabwe from its governing councils after the 2002 elections, and renewed the suspension last December at a summit meeting in Nigeria, prompting Mugabe to pull Zimbabwe out of the grouping.

Political analyst Kurebwa said some of the funding that could have come through bilateral deals with some European countries has been suspended "because we are now an international outcast".

The EU has restricted assistance to Zimbabwe to humanitarian aid since 2002 - about €52-million over the past six months alone to combat the effects of famine.

Rights activist Brian Raftopuolous said, "Symbolically (sanctions) will help to confirm the isolation of the regime," adding: "I think the situation has not improved sufficiently for them to remove the sanctions.

"There has been no substantive improvement in politics, the press. The judiciary has shown that its agenda is the agenda of the ruling party".

Zanu-PF's Kangai, meanwhile, is convinced that "nothing has happened which would justify the extension of the sanctions.

"The situation in the country has improved significantly... there is no political violence," said Kangai.

"There is no... subversion of the judiciary. We take the position that the sanctions should be removed," he said. – Sapa-AFP.