Zimbabwe’s new prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, has called on the world ”to get over” Robert Mugabe and stop seeing him as the country’s principal problem.
Speaking to the Guardian shortly before ministers in the new power-sharing government were sworn in on Friday, Tsvangirai said that his immediate challenges — from paying government workers to purging the system of some of its worst crooks — now have little to do with the man who has ruled Zimbabwe for 29 years.
”Unfortunately people are preoccupied with Mugabe as a person. They need to get over it. This has gone beyond Mugabe. People need to stop talking about him as the only issue. Mugabe is part of the problem but he is also part of the solution. He is not the obstacle we are now facing,” he said.
Hours later, Tsvangirai received a sharp reminder of another more sinister challenge his administration faces when one of his new ministers, Roy Bennett, was arrested. The detention, along with the continued imprisonment of dozens of opposition supporters who have been tortured, reflects deep divisions within the upper echelons of Mugabe’s power structure, with some military chiefs apparently attempting to sabotage the power-sharing agreement that brought Tsvangirai in to government.
The Movement for Democratic Change believes that if it can establish itself as a partner in government and strengthen support by reviving the economy, power will bleed from Mugabe and Zanu-PF to Tsvangirai.
The new prime minister swiftly won over government workers, the police and soldiers by promising to pay them in hard currency. But there were questions about where Tsvangirai will find the $100-million required, given that Britain and other donors have laid down a set of benchmarks by which the new administration will be judged before beginning to release a £1,2-billion aid package. These include a return to the rule of law, the freeing of political detainees and the lifting of draconian restrictions on the independent press.
Tsvangirai said help would be forthcoming to pay the salaries, although he declined to specify from where.
But he acknowledged that it would take time to win more substantial aid. ”We have to earn the confidence of the international community. Their scepticism is justified. This is 29 years of one-man rule. But I’m quite certain, if we start moving on the benchmarks, that will be the basis for incremental support,” he said.
An early marker will be the fate of the central bank governor, Gideon Gono, who has overseen world-record inflation running above 10-sextillion percent and the eradication of the national currency. He also facilitated the plunder of Zimbabwe’s coffers by its ruling elite.
Tsvangirai acknowledges that getting rid of Gono and the attorney general, Johannes Tomana, who has abused the law to lock up Mugabe’s opponents, will be seen as an early test of his power.
”We are dealing with that issue of Gono. The government has to deal with it because I appreciate that people have no confidence in our central bank governor and our attorney general,” he said. ”We recognise that it will be hard to win the donors’ confidence if the central bank governor is still there. I cannot say more right now but it will be dealt with.”
Tsvangirai also acknowledges that he faces another crucial test in winning the release of 30 political detainees held for months and brutally tortured. They were supposed to be freed before he was sworn in.
The prime minister has come under criticism for taking office when senior Zanu-PF officials had failed to deliver on a deal for the prisoners to be released. But he blamed other forces for the problem.
”I do agree that it’s a question of credibility,” he said. ”The problem is not Mugabe. It lies elsewhere. It is others. We need to overcome that.”
Tsvangirai declined to name names but the divisions in the upper echelons of Mugabe’s regime were laid bare at the new prime minister’s inauguration when the military service chiefs — including the armed forces chief, Constantine Chiwenga, and the police commander, Augustine Chihuri — refused to attend.
Tsvangirai said that while dissent by the old regime’s hardliners is a concern, he does not believe they will be able to retain power or, as some in his party fear, carry out a coup. ”The region won’t accept it. The world won’t accept it. They can’t get away with it,” he said. ”We know the agreement does not have support from all parties. The leadership challenge for us is to negotiate away these areas of disgruntlement. We can do that and we are going to begin by getting people back to work.” – guardian.co.uk