Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe will call early elections if an agreement on power-sharing with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) fails to work within the next two years, state media reported on Friday.
”We agreed to give them (MDC) 13 ministries while we share the Ministry of Home Affairs, but if the arrangement fails to work in the next one-and-a-half to two years, then we would go for elections,” Mugabe was quoted as saying by government-mouthpiece Herald newspaper.
Zimbabwe has been in political limbo since elections in March when the opposition wrested control of Parliament from Mugabe’s party and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai pushed Mugabe into second place in a presidential poll.
But Tsvangirai pulled out of a run-off poll in June after dozens of his supporters were killed in attacks blamed on Mugabe supporters.
The two rivals did sign an agreement in September to share power, but it has yet to be implemented after fierce disagreements over who should control key ministries.
In his comments published by the Herald, made during an address to members of his Zanu-PF party’s politburo, Mugabe accused the MDC of trying to destroy the power-sharing agreement.
”The MDC should say no if they do not want to be part of the inclusive government,” said Mugabe (84), who has ruled the former British colony since independence in 1980.
”We agreed to work with the MDC so that we push government programmes together as a country, but when elections are announced we go against each other.”
‘He has destroyed a wonderful country’
Meanwhile, South Africa will send a team of senior government officials to Zimbabwe next week to assess the food crisis in there and investigate what aid is needed, a government spokesperson said on Friday.
Zimbabwe has declared a national emergency and appealed for international help as it battles a cholera outbreak that has killed at least 565 people.
South African government spokesperson Themba Maseko said a team of officials will visit Zimbabwe next week to investigate the food and health crisis.
”The purpose of the visit will be to assess the situation on the ground, determine the level of assistance required and to consult with the representatives of the various stakeholders in Zimbabwe on how a … distribution and monitoring mechanism could be set up,” Maseko said.
Thousands of Zimbabweans are believed to cross the border, often illegally, into South Africa each day.
Economic meltdown in Zimbabwe, isolated by Western countries under Mugabe’s increasingly authoritarian rule, has left the health system ill-prepared to cope with a cholera epidemic that it once would have prevented or treated easily.
There is not enough money to pay doctors and nurses or buy medicine and aid agency Oxfam estimated that at least 300 000 people weakened by lack of food are in danger from the cholera epidemic.
”Millions of people were already facing starvation. With unemployment at more than 80 percent, and food unavailable across the country, they now have to contend with cholera and other diseases as the water and sanitation systems break down,” Peter Mutoredzanwa, country director for Oxfam in Zimbabwe, said in a statement.
South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu said late on Thursday Mugabe must step down or be removed by force.
”I think now that the world must say: ‘You have been responsible with your cohorts for gross violations, and you are going to face indictment in The Hague unless you step down,” Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, told Dutch television.
Asked if Mugabe, who has been in power since independence from Britain in 1980, should be removed by force, Tutu said: ”Yes, by force — if they say to him: step down, and he refuses, they must do so militarily.”
”He has destroyed a wonderful country. A country that used to be a bread basket — it has now become a basket case,” Tutu said. — AFP, Reuters