Key aspects of Zimbabwe’s power-sharing deal will not take effect until next month, when Parliament meets and makes the necessary constitutional changes, a senior aide to President Robert Mugabe was quoted as saying on Wednesday.
Patrick Chinamasa’s comments in the government-controlled Herald newspaper were likely to add to concerns that Mugabe’s agreement to cede some power for the first time in 28 years, signed with fanfare Monday, will founder on delay and political dissension.
Among other things, the Constitution needs to be changed to create the post of prime minister, which will be filled by Morgan Tsvangirai under the power-sharing deal. Mugabe remains president under the agreement.
The deal has been criticised privately by some in the opposition who are unhappy that it gives Mugabe too much power and the chance to play on tensions between the two opposition groups.
Mugabe’s party and officials from the two parties with whom he will share power were supposed to meet on Tuesday to discuss how to share out Cabinet posts, but the talks were indefinitely postponed without explanation.
It was unclear when the new government would be sworn in.
Constitutional amendments would ”regularise” the agreement signed by Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, leader of a faction that broke away from Tsvangirai’s opposition party, Chinamasa said, according to the newspaper.
”These amendments would be tabled before Parliament when it opens next month,” he was quoted as saying, adding there will be no move to open Parliament before October 14, as originally planned.
The deal provides for 31 ministers — 15 from Mugabe’s party, 13 from Tsvangirai’s and three from Mutambara’s. Allotting those posts will mean pushing out Mugabe loyalists who now hold Cabinet posts.
The Herald said the decision-making politburo of Mugabe’s party met on Tuesday in Harare to discuss the power-sharing agreement, and that the party’s central committee meets on Wednesday. Ruling party officials would not comment on the politburo meeting, the Herald said.
Anxiety
Neither Nelson Chamisa, Tsvangirai’s spokesperson, nor George Charamba, Mugabe’s spokesperson, would speculate on Wednesday on when the new government would be sworn in and get to work. Chamisa, though, said leaders would find a way to swear in Tsvangirai even if the post of prime minister did not yet technically exist.
Continued political delay means only more time before dire economic problems can be addressed. A resurgence of violence, though, seemed unlikely. The country has been largely calm since June, and both Mugabe and his rivals say they want the agreement to work.
Chamisa said the delays were worrying in the tense country.
”Clearly there is anxiety in the country,” Chamisa said. ”People would want to see movement in terms of the realisation of the actual deal. As the Movement for Democratic Change, we want to urgently respond to the desperate and dire situation Zimbabweans find themselves in.”
Charamba, though, said he was confident talks would soon be on track. He said he was spending Wednesday at his farm outside Harare while Mugabe addressed a meeting of top party officials in Harare in preparation for further talks with the other parties.
”If I was worried, I would have been in Harare,” Charamba said.
Zimbabweans are desperate for a political solution so their leaders can concentrate on a growing economic crisis.
The country has the world’s highest inflation rate, even by the official figure of more than 11-million percent. Independent economists put it much higher. Food and other basics are scarce, and aid agencies say more and more Zimbabweans are going hungry.
The international Red Cross said on Wednesday its trucks would leave warehouses in the main Zimbabwe cities of Harare, Bulawayo and Mutare, carrying nearly 400 tons of maize, beans and cooking oil for the about 24 000 needy Zimbabweans. More shipments will follow in coming months. — Sapa-AP