Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai were locked in make-or-break talks on Sunday night over how power will be distributed in a coalition government aimed at ending Zimbabwe’s deepening political and economic crisis.
The two sides have reached broad agreement that Mugabe will remain president and Tsvangirai will be prime minister at the head of a large Cabinet divided evenly between their two parties, but with a smaller opposition faction holding the balance of posts.
Sources close to the talks, mediated by South African President Thabo Mbeki, said there remained significant differences over key issues that will decide whether Mugabe retains real control of the government, in effect overturning Tsvangirai’s victory in the March presidential election.
Mbeki was pushing for an agreement that would not only resolve Zimbabwe’s crisis but permit him to claim that his strategy of quiet diplomacy, derided in the west as a failure, was ultimately successful.
In June, Mbeki proposed that Mugabe remain as a titular president, after 28 years in total control, with executive powers transferred to Tsvangirai as prime minister. Mugabe went into Sunday’s meeting determined not to cede most of his powers, while Tsvangirai argued that he won a mandate to govern from the people in the March election — the last one widely considered to be largely legitimate.
Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said before the talks that while it would accept Mugabe in a ceremonial role, if he were to retain significant powers it would reward his Zanu-PF party’s campaign of killings, beatings, abductions and rapes that broke opposition support in a second round of elections in June.
Among the other issues in dispute is the composition of the Cabinet. Mugabe wants it to have 36 ministers, with Zanu-PF and the MDC holding 15 seats each and the remaining six held by a breakaway faction of the MDC headed by Arthur Mutambara. Tsvangirai wants a smaller Cabinet and Mutambara to have only two seats.
Zanu-PF is keen for a large number of Cabinet seats in part because party leaders see sitting in government as a means of perpetuating their patronage and ensuring they are not prosecuted for past crimes.
There is also wrangling over who will hold the most powerful portfolios. The MDC is anxious to control the ministries that oversee the police and intelligence services, believing that they are the key to ensuring that future elections are free and fair after the two organisations were roped in to the violent and bloody state-orchestrated campaign against opposition supporters.
Tsvangirai is less concerned about winning control over the army, which the opposition believes will be loyal to the government of the day.
The two parties also disagree over how long the incoming administration will serve. The MDC wants it to sit for about two years, during which a new constitution will be written and elections held.
Zanu-PF favours a government serving a full five-year term, in part because if another ballot is held in the near future the party is likely to suffer a devastating defeat, while several years from now Zimbabweans may be less enamoured of the MDC, after they have seen it in power.
Tsvangirai holds a number of important cards in the talks. There will be no significant financial aid from the West to stabilise Zimbabwe’s economy amid hyperinflation expected to rise to 50-million percent this month, without a significant shift in power to the MDC leader. Britain, the United States and the European Union have all said that a £1-billion aid package will only be released if Mugabe relinquishes control of the government.
It could also be argued that Mbeki needs an agreement as much as Tsvangirai in order to justify his much-criticised Zimbabwe policy and regain some of his rapidly eroding political credibility at home.
Some of those who have backed Tsvangirai fear he may be desperate to become prime minister and give too much away.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, which Tsvangirai once headed and which gave birth to the MDC, has criticised the fact that negotiations take place behind closed doors with only political parties present. It said the talks should ”reflect the will of the people of Zimbabwe and not self-seeking, power-sharing agendas”.
”Zimbabwe is not made up of supporters of Zanu-PF and MDC alone, but a plethora of groupings which have to be consulted if the process is to gain wider acceptance by the majority,” it said last month when talks were announced.
Backstory
Zimbabwe’s political negotiations come against a background of rapid economic collapse, driven by hyper-inflation, which brought large parts of the country to the brink of starvation. The government officially puts inflation at 2 200 000% but economists say that it was closer to 10-million percent last month and they estimate it will rise to about 50-million percent in August. This month, the central bank removed 10 zeros from the Zimbabwe dollar because rapid devaluation had dragged it to Z$1,5-trillion to the pound. The currency has continued to implode, losing half of its value in a week. The World Food Programme warned that up to 5,1-million Zimbabweans — nearly one third of the population — will need food aid this year because the economic crisis and the redistribution of formerly white-owned farms has led to a collapse in crop production. – guardian.co.uk