A top Zimbabwe ruling party official on Monday dismissed media reports that his party was holding secret talks with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
The Sunday Times newspaper, quoting unnamed sources, had claimed that President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) party was holding talks with the MDC about a transitional government.
The government would include the opposition and possibly lead to
fresh elections, the paper claimed.
But Nathan Shamuyarira, Zanu-PF’s secretary for information, told state radio that the Sunday Times’s report was ”baseless”.
He repeated his party’s conditions for talks with the opposition — that they first recognise Mugabe as the country’s legitimate head of state.
The MDC and its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, have rejected Mugabe’s victory in a disputed presidential poll last year. They are due to challenge the result in court. Some independent observer groups also condemned the poll as seriously flawed.
Tsvangirai and two senior party officials are on trial for treason for allegedly trying to eliminate Mugabe ahead of the poll.
The latest charges brought against Tsvangirai mark the second time that the former trade unionist has been charged with treason. In March last year, Tsvangirai and two other key MDC officials were charged with high treason in connection with an alleged plot to ”eliminate” Mugabe.
They deny the charges, which carry the death penalty on conviction.
Fresh treason charges were levelled against Tsvangirai on Friday after he allegedly called for the overthrow of Mugabe’s government through a week of opposition-led strikes and demonstrations.
In latest news, Welshman Ncube, the MDC’s secretary general, was arrested on Monday in Harare, a police spokesperson said.
Ncube was arrested as he made his way to the high court, police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena said.
State radio said Ncube was being charged with urging MDC supporters to rise up against the government.
Earlier, Tsvangirai’s South African lawyer George Bizos argued that high court Judge Paddington Garwe should keep control of the proceedings and not allow ”sideshows” at the magistrate’s court.
He accused the state of trying to interfere with the smooth running of Tsvangirai’s other treason trial. But state lawyer Bharat Patel opposed the defence argument, saying the fresh allegations against Tsvangirai had nothing to do with the earlier treason trial which opened in February. – Sapa-AFP