Zimbabwe’s ruling party on Monday dismissed reports that President Robert Mugabe would retire as part of a plan to set up a power-sharing government to end the country’s political and economic crisis.
Nathan Shamuyarira, secretary for information in Mugabe’s party, accused Britain, the former colonial ruler, of being behind reports the increasingly dictatorial president would step down in a deal with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
”It is not correct. It is a mixture of wishful thinking and mischief on the part of the British,” he told reporters at the headquarters of the ruling Zanu-PF party in Harare.
Independent mediators trying to end the nation’s political crisis said on Sunday that two of the ruling party’s most powerful figures — Parliament speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa and armed forces chief of staff General Vitalis Zvinavashe — proposed Mugabe’s retirement in hopes of regaining international legitimacy and renewed aid and investment for the country during a period of transitional rule.
The mediators, fearing allegations of treason if the offer collapsed, spoke on condition of anonymity.
MDC officials also denied the existence of the offer on Monday. However, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai said on Sunday that he had received the offer. He said his party’s lawmakers were ready to vote with the ruling party for a constitutional amendment allowing the creation of a caretaker government once Mugabe stepped down.
The power-sharing government would aim to end an economic meltdown that has left at least half Zimbabwe’s population on the verge of starvation.
There was no suggestion Tsvangirai would head a caretaker government, though his party would be offered a small number of Cabinet posts, the mediators said.
Shamuyarira said on Monday that Britain backed the opposition and wanted to see Tsvangirai installed in power.
”The British would like to see that happening, but it is not going to happen,” he said.
Mugabe’s whereabouts were unclear on Monday. There was no official word on his scheduled return from a two week vacation abroad. His office in Harare said he was in Thailand on Friday and was to visit Malaysia and Singapore on his way home.
In another reversal of opposition policy, Tsvangirai said any agreement on Mugabe’s resignation would include guarantees of immunity from trial over alleged misrule and human rights violations during his 23 years in power. He also could remain in the country if he wished.
Malaysia has reportedly been approached to offer Mugabe sanctuary if he chose to leave. Mugabe, who led the nation to independence in 1980, won a new six-year term in elections last March that independent observers
said were deeply flawed.
The MDC, along with Britain, the European Union and the United States, have refused to accept the results, saying voting was rigged and influenced by violence and intimidation.
Mugabe has defended the often-violent seizures of thousands of white-owned farms since 2000 as a justified struggle by landless black Zimbabweans to correct colonial era injustices which left 4 000 white Zimbabweans owning one third of the nation’s productive land.
Disruptions in the agriculture-based economy and erratic rains have caused acute shortages of hard currency, gasoline, food and essential imports. – Sapa-AP