Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe looked increasingly isolated yesterday as his party gathered in the shadow of a Commonwealth ban and efforts to expel Harare from the International Monetary Fund.

Far from the pomp and ceremony of the Commonwealth summit in Abuja, where Britain?s Queen Elizabeth began a state visit on Wednesday, Mugabe?s ZANU-PF party begins its own conference on Thursday amid calls for quitting the 54-member body.

In a fresh blow to the embattled Mugabe, the IMF said on Wednesday it had begun steps to expel Zimbabwe from the fund, saying state policies had failed to actively address the economic woes of the country, in arrears to the IMF since 2001.

Mugabe was due for the official opening ceremony of the annual ZANU-PF party conference today at Masvingo, at the heart of a drought-prone farming and mining area and known mainly for the ruins of Great Zimbabwe on the edge of town ? the relics of an ancient trading civilisation.

ZANU-PF says the main agenda will focus on Zimbabwe?s severe economic crisis, the government?s controversial reforms and on ways to strengthen its party structures for parliamentary polls due early in 2005. But the Commonwealth is bound to figure.

Officials said ZANU-PF was likely to give the go-ahead, if Mugabe wished, to quit the Commonwealth, which suspended him over allegations of vote rigging in his 2002 re-election.

Mugabe accuses ?white racists? within the 54-member group of mainly ex-British colonies of pursuing a vendetta against him for giving white-owned farm land to landless blacks.

?I think there is going to be a resolution that if the Commonwealth is going to be an organisation where there is no respect for national sovereignty, where a small group of white racists are going to be allowed to dictate their wishes on everybody, then Zimbabwe must not be part of that Commonwealth,? said one senior official .

?There is a very strong opinion now that Zimbabwe must look at membership in other organisations where the principle of mutual respect and equality of nations and races is respected, not just in word but in deed,? the official said.

The official said Zimbabwe may even try to join the lusophone group of former Portuguese colonies, highlighting its little-published history of gold, ivory and commodity commerce with Portuguese traders centuries ago ? an economic mainstay of the Great Zimbabwe civilisation at Masvingo.

Zimbabwe is likely to dominate the Abuja Commonwealth summit. Britain and Australia hope to extend Harare?s suspension, putting them on a collision course with countries like Zambia, which want to reinstate Zimbabwe.

After he was not invited to Friday?s Abuja Meeting, Mugabe accused Britain, Australia and New Zealand on Tuesday of forging an ?unholy alliance? against him and said Zimbabwe?s future in the Commonwealth would depend on respect for its independence.

In a state of the nation address, Mugabe told parliament his embattled government was working towards building an ?alternative global power point? ? including China -- because a unipolar political order led by the United States was unjust.

Mugabe, who has ruled since independence from Britain in 1980, faces an unprecedented political and economic crisis that has seen the inflation rate rocket to more than 500 percent ? one of the highest in the world ? and unemployment soar.

He accuses opponents at home and abroad of sabotaging the economy as punishment for his land reform programme.

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