The ruling party in Zimbabwe is ready to form a government of national unity with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), but will not consider new elections, a newspaper said on Thursday.
”We have had such governments in the 1970s and in 1987 with Zapu (an opposition party),” the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) spokesperson Nathan Shamuyarira told the private Daily News.
”It is a tradition that we have always had and we are ready for that,” Shamuyarira was quoted as saying.
But the paper said he rejected calls for a transitional government that would be tasked to prepare for free and fair elections. This was in response to a promise made earlier this week by US Secretary of State Colin Powell that the US would resume aid to Zimbabwe ”with the president (Mugabe) gone”.
”We have never been opposed to a government of national unity. We have also never objected to American investment,” Shamuyarira said. ”But such (US) support should not be conditional.”
The US government does not recognise Mugabe’s victory in last year’s presidential poll. It has imposed a visa ban on Zimbabwean leaders, frozen any assets they might have in the United States and cut off all official assistance to the government.
The Zanu-PF spokesperson’s comments about a unity government contradicted those of Mugabe who has said he will never form such a government with the opposition party, which he says is a front for Western interests.
The MDC is also adamantly opposed to such a government. The party, which poses the biggest threat to Mugabe’s 23-year hold on power, says such a move would see the opposition party neutralised.
In a separate development, Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, speaking in his capacity as deputy Zanu-PF spokesperson was quoted in Thursday’s official Herald newspaper as saying the use of ”lies and deception” by Powell and US President George Bush would never work against Zimbabwe.
”The use of lies and deception by Powell and Bush has not worked in Iraq where he wanted to mix it with oil. It will never work anywhere else and will certainly not mix with land in Zimbabwe,” Moyo said.
The Zimbabwe government claims that Western countries, including former colonial power Britain and EU member states as well as the United States, are opposed to Zimbabwe’s land reform programme, which has seen fast-track seizures of land from white farmers for redistribution among new black farmers. – Sapa-AFP