Power-sharing talks between Zimbabwe’s opposition and negotiators for President Robert Mugabe have broken off, officials said on Monday. One said the main sticking point was Mugabe’s insistence that he be president of any new government.
Two officials said the chief negotiators for Mugabe — Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa and Social Welfare Minister Nicholas Goche — were flying home. They were expected to consult Mugabe about their mandate, one of the officials said.
Another official, in South Africa, said opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai had left Zimbabwe for South Africa to consult with his negotiators.
The officials — all close to the power-sharing talks — insisted on anonymity because all parties agreed to a media blackout during the talks, which began on Thursday.
Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won most votes in the first round of elections in March, but Tsvangirai pulled out of a June run-off following months of escalating state-sponsored violence.
Mugabe ran alone and declared himself winner, but the election was widely discredited internationally as a sham.
The biggest obstacle to any agreement has been who would lead a new government.
Tsvangirai has said that an agreeable settlement must recognise only his victory in the March elections. Mugabe, who has survived years of attempts to oust him, even by his own party, insists he should head any government.
The agreement to hold power-sharing talks was reached a week ago with increasing violence putting pressure on the opposition while intense international disapproval — including some African governments saying they could not recognise Mugabe as president of Zimbabwe — appeared to sway Mugabe’s ruling party.
Tsvangirai has been criticised by his own party members for agreeing to the talks without insisting that his followers, including some newly elected legislators, be freed from jail.
Last week’s agreement called for an end to all violence. Though beatings and abductions of opposition activists have diminished, the violence still continues, according to doctors and analysts in Zimbabwe.
The agreement also calls for the government to reverse an order barring NGOs from distributing food.
Mugabe accused the organisations of selectively feeding only opposition supporters and has not honoured the agreement. Instead, he recently made cheaper food available to the poor, but residents say it goes only to registered supporters of his Zanu-PF party. The subsidised food also is sold to soldiers whose officers are among Mugabe’s strongest loyalists.
One third of Zimbabweans are hungry and dependent on foreign food aid and another third of the population has fled the Southern African nation’s political and economic disaster.
Zimbabwe used to grow enough to feed itself and export food to the region until Mugabe turned on white commercial farmers, expropriating their farms and saying he would give the farms to poor black Zimbabweans. Instead, much of the land went to his ministers and generals and was left to lie fallow, helping destroy the economy.
Today, there are chronic shortages of everything including medication, fuel, food, electricity and water and Zimbabwe suffers the highest inflation rate in the world. Last week, the central bank issued a Z$100-billion banknote that is not enough to buy a loaf of bread. — Sapa-AP