ABC
By Africa correspondent Andrew Geoghegan
Posted Fri Oct 10, 2008 8:33am AEDT
Zimbabwe’s opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), says a deadlock over power sharing arrangements with President Robert Mugabe is plunging the country into deeper economic hardship.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai is calling for urgent foreign mediation amid claims that Zimbabwean people will starve if the crisis is not fixed.
Mr Tsvangirai is adamant that his party will have significant power in Zimbabwe’s new unity Government. He wants to take charge of the Home Affairs Ministry, which controls the police, but Mr Mugabe refuses to give it up.
The deadlock means that more than three weeks after signing a power sharing deal, Zimbabwe is effectively still without a government.
Mr Tsvangirai is calling on former South African president Thabo Mbeki to resume his role as mediator.
The deadlock has delayed any economic relief and Zimbabweans are now desperately trying to feed themselves as inflation moves beyond 230 million per cent.
Senator David Coltart from the Movement for Democratic Change says most people can no longer afford food.
“So we simply can’t go on like this for much longer without there being a very serious risk that people will start dying in their thousands,” he said.
The country’s economic meltdown is expected to continue until the MDC and Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party settle on the allocation of cabinet positions.