HARARE (AFP) -- The speaker of the Zimbabwean parliament John Nkomo has indicated that he will throw his hat into the ring for the contest to succeed veteran President Robert Mugabe.

"Why would I vie for the vice-president's position when there is the presidency?" Nkomo, who is also the governing ZANU-PF party's chairman, was quoted by The Sunday Mail as telling journalists in the second city Bulawayo. "Why should I not be president? I have risen through the ranks from branch level to the national party chairman, which is less strenuous but very powerful. So why not the presidency?"

The 70-year-old former teacher and veteran politician said it would be up to the electorate to choose the country's next leader. "When the time comes that there is a vacancy, someone will occupy it. Our people are intelligent enough to make the choice."

Nkomo refused to say whether the next presidential polls would be held as scheduled in 2008 when Mugabe's sixth term will have elapsed or whether the contest would be held over until 2010 to coincide with parliamentary elections, as has been widely muted.

Mugabe, who has led Zimbabwe since independence from British colonial rule in 1980, has indicated he will retire at the end of his current term.

Senior members of ZANU-PF have been jostling behind the scenes for the last two years since 82-year-old Mugabe first spoke of stepping down.

Although Mugabe has held off anointing a successor, he hinted that Vice-President Joyce Mujuru was destined for higher office when ZANU-PF elected her as the party's deputy leader in December 2004.

"When you choose her as vice president, you don't want her to remain in that chair, do you?" Mugabe told the ruling party's annual congress.

He has since criticised infighting among senior party members who are due to gather at the ZANU-PF conference near Harare early next month.