/ 13 August 2008

Pressure mounts on Tsvangirai

Pressure mounted on Wednesday on Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader to agree to a power-sharing deal with the country’s autocratic President, Robert Mugabe.

Arthur Mutambara, head of a smaller opposition faction, appealed to Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai to ”put national interest before self-interest”.

”We are at a crossroads in our country,” Mutambara told a news conference. ”The leaders of our political parties must rise up to the challenge to provide leadership.”

State media signalled that Mugabe would go ahead and form a government, with or without Tsvangirai.

Tsvangirai on Tuesday balked at signing up to an accord brokered by South African President Thabo Mbeki. Both Mutambara and Mbeki denied that the talks had collapsed and said they were merely adjourned.

”They need a bit of more time to reflect so they will do that,” Mbeki told journalists in reference to Tsvangirai.

Mbeki said there was one key sticking point, which he did not identify. He said Tsvangirai had asked for ”space …. to reflect about this matter which the other two negotiators [Mugabe and Mutambara] have agreed”.

The most contentious issue has been the amount of control the 84-year-old Mugabe is prepared to cede.

Mugabe reportedly wants to retain as much authority as possible as president, while Tsvangirai reportedly wants sweeping executive powers as prime minister, including the right to chair Cabinet meetings.

The Herald newspaper, an official government mouthpiece that usually gets information from close Mugabe confidants, accused Tsvangirai of raising objections on Tuesday on the orders of a ”Western embassy”. The government often accuses Tsvangirai of being a stooge of Britain and the United States.

Without identifying the source of its information, the Herald said that President Mugabe would go ahead and form the next government and Parliament would soon sit.

‘Dialogue must not be allowed to crumble’
Mutambara insisted that he had not cut a separate deal with Mugabe to sideline Tsvangirai.

”All three parties must agree if there is to be an agreement. There is no way you can extract a bilateral agreement from a tripartite process,” he said.

If the three-way talks do not deliver, then ”we are back to the drawing table”, he said.

”This dialogue must not be allowed to crumble,” he said.

Tsvangirai’s officials could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

He was stony-faced as he stormed out of the negotiations at a Harare hotel late on Tuesday.

Tsvangirai won the first round of presidential elections in March, though not by an outright majority, but boycotted the run-off in June to protest widespread violence against his supporters.

”Any so-called government of national unity which did not involve Mr Tsvangirai would effectively be a farce … and would fly in the face of any semblance of respecting the will of the Zimbabwean people,” Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told Sky News television.

Tsvangirai’s faction has 100 seats in Parliament, and the ruling Zanu-PF 99. Mutambara, whose faction holds 10, agreed to form a parliamentary alliance with Tsvangirai after the March elections. If he did decide to switch allegiances, it would give the majority to Mugabe’s party.

Mbeki left Zimbabwe for Angola before a regional summit that starts in South Africa at the weekend. Angola chairs a key regional security committee and is traditionally a close Mugabe ally, though it criticised the irregularities and intimidation during the elections.

”We are indeed convinced that it is possible to conclude these negotiations quite quickly,” Mbeki told reporters in the Angolan capital, Luanda.

Mbeki appealed for patience, saying the crucial issue of leadership positions was still under discussion.

”They are working on a truly inclusive government,” he said.

Mbeki, whose quiet diplomacy has been criticised, even in Africa, as accomplishing little but keeping Mugabe in power, had hoped to present the power-sharing government to the weekend summit.

Mugabe and Zanu-PF have ruled Zimbabwe since the country gained independence from Britain in 1980. His land-reform policies have ruined the country’s once-thriving agricultural sector, and he became increasingly ruthless as his country slid into economic collapse. — Sapa-AP, Reuters