Zimbabwe’s leaders were to meet on Thursday to choose a new government, after President Robert Mugabe said the ruling party had been humiliated by a power-sharing deal with the opposition.
Mugabe, prime minister-designate Morgan Tsvangirai and opposition splinter leader Arthur Mutambara were to meet on Thursday to advance the deal, Mutambara’s spokesperson, Edwin Mushoriwa, said.
Mugabe told his ruling Zanu-PF central committee on Wednesday that party divisions during elections in March had cost him a winning majority in the first round of the presidential election.
”One keeps asking if only we had not blundered in the harmonised election we would not be facing this humiliation,” he said.
But the veteran leader, in an address broadcast live on television, went on to assure his party that it remained in ”the driving seat” and ”will not tolerate any nonsense from our new partners”.
The 84-year-old appealed to Zanu-PF leaders to explain to Zimbabweans that the new deal meant former opponents were now political partners.
Zanu-PF chief negotiator Patrick Chinamasa said the central committee had endorsed the power-sharing deal, signed on Monday in a bid to ease the country’s deadlocked political crisis and economic meltdown.
”The central committee asked President Mugabe to ask Mr Tsvangirai about acts of violence being perpetrated against our supporters as it was felt that it might jeopardise the relationship we are trying to build,” he added.
A multiparty Cabinet is to be led by Mugabe as president with Tsvangirai as prime minister. Mutambara will take one of the two deputy prime ministerial posts.
The number of ministerial posts have been divided among the parties, with the Zanu-PF allotted 15 portfolios, Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) 13 and three for Mutambara.
MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa said he did not know if the allocation of ministries would finish on Thursday.
But speaking on South African radio, Tsvangirai said on Wednesday he was certain Mugabe’s commitment to the deal was ”unquestionable” and voiced confidence that the government would work.
”At a personal level, we don’t have a strained relationship […] there’s has been some positive interaction. So I’m quite confident that we can work together for the good of the people. I mean that’s the whole intention.”
The MDC won a majority in the March elections, ending Mugabe’s unrivalled nearly 30-year hold on power. Tsvangirai boycotted a widely condemned one-man presidential run-off in June.
Analysts have warned there will be no immediate economic impact from the deal and that past political hostilities could haunt the new partnership.
There have been chronic shortages of cash amid hyperinflation, which was last reported at 11,2-million percent.
The South African government on Thursday said it would help draw up an emergency plan for Zimbabwe, a former regional breadbasket, to resuscitate its agricultural industry. — Sapa-AFP