Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said on Wednesday it had not seen a proposed constitutional amendment that would create a post of prime minister, earmarked for the party’s leader under a unity accord.
Under the power-sharing deal signed more than two months ago, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai would become prime minister while veteran ruler Robert Mugabe would remain as president.
The government announced late on Tuesday it had drafted a text for what would be Zimbabwe’s 19th constitutional amendment, setting out the powers of the new prime minister.
But Tendai Biti, the secretary general of Tsvangirai’s MDC, said the party had not seen the amendment.
”We have not seen the draft constitutional amendment number 19,” Biti said.
”We don’t have it. Even if they say constitutional amendment number 19 is complete, there are a number of issues which are still outstanding,” he said. They included disputes over how the parties would divide control of powerful Cabinet posts.
Information Minister Sikanyiso Ndlovu said on Tuesday the amendment had been sent to former South African president Thabo Mbeki, who has mediated in Zimbabwe’s stand-off.
In the government mouthpiece Herald newspaper on Wednesday, Ndlovu claimed the Bill had received ”scrutiny by the parties concerned”.
Once the Bill had been published, he said, it would undergo a 30-day public review period.
Mugabe would only appoint a Cabinet after the public review, he added. The new legal affairs minister would steer the Bill through parliament, which is now controlled by the MDC.
”The Bill cannot be done right away without a Cabinet, it cannot go to Parliament if it’s not approved by Cabinet,” added Ndlovu.
The MDC wrestled control of Parliament from Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party for the first time in general elections in March.
Although Tsvangirai won the presidential election’s first round in March, he boycotted the June run-off, citing state-sponsored violence against his supporters.
The two sides are locked in a stand-off over the allocation of key ministries including home affairs, which controls the police.
Food aid
Meanwhile, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Wednesday that it has signed a new food aid deal to allow the UN agency to provide 350 000 tonnes of grain to millions in the strife-torn country.
”The agreement is part of our long-standing partnership with the government of Zimbabwe. It runs until April 2010,” said WFP spokesperson Richard Lee.
The $500-million agreement will provide food relief to poverty-stricken Zimbabweans over the next two years.
WFP’s representative in Zimbabwe, Bahre Gessesse, said in the state media that two thirds of the 350 000 tonnes had already been secured and was being distributed.
”In October alone, we reached two million people and we expect to reach out to 2,5-million people in November, and the number is expected to rise,” Gessesse said in the Herald.
The WFP estimates that in January about five million people will need emergency food aid — nearly half the population.
In June, President Robert Mugabe’s government attracted widespread condemnation after it suspended the operations of aid agencies. He accused them of using food to direct people to vote for the opposition in the March 29 general elections.
The ban was lifted in August. — AFP
