Robert Mugabe to form government ‘as soon as possible’

The Telegraph
By Sebastien Berger And Peta Thornycroft in Johannesburg
10 November 2008

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change had been demanding control of the home affairs ministry, but a Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in Johannesburg at the weekend said the post should be shared.

“We will try to institute it as soon as possible,” said the octogenarian leader, who has presided over the destruction of the economy of his country, where millions of people need food aid.

The MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai will be invited to submit names for inclusion in the cabinet, added Zanu-PF’s chief negotiator Patrick Chinamasa. “Whether he will respond positively or not only time will tell,” he said.

The opposition is now faced with a stark choice, either walking away from the agreement signed in September – which it has previously said it would not do – or give in, and join a government in which it would clearly be the junior partner.

It is yet another negotiating coup for Mr Mugabe, who has demonstrated his ability to out-manoeuvre opponents time and again over the decades.

The MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said: “Our position as of now is that a false settlement is riskier than no settlement,” adding that the party leadership would meet on Friday to consider developments and decide on “the future of the dialogue process”.

David Coltart, an MDC Senator, added: “This is highly unsatisfactory. For me it is not so much how the cake cuts but how it is eaten. Everything in Zimbabwe is disastrous.”

Britain condemned the summit’s conclusions, with Gordon Brown’s official spokesman saying: “The international community is quite clear that it expects an equitable agreement on the allocation of ministries between Zanu-PF and the MDC.”

But signs of fatigue over the issue are beginning to emerge among the SADC leaders – only five of the organisation’s 15 members were represented at the head of state level at the summit, with the MDC’s biggest supporters, Botswana and Tanzania, only sending their vice- president and foreign minister respectively.

Sources said that the MDC had lost sympathy within the gathering when it sought to re-open all ministerial allocations, having previously said that home affairs was the key sticking point.

Meanwhile. the Global Fund to fight Malaria, Aids and Tuberculosis yesterday announced that it had approved grants for programmes in Zimbabwe totalling $169m (£107m) over two years.

After a dispute over its money being made available to recipients, with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe holding on to millions of pounds’ worth of foreign exchange for several months, the fund said it would delay putting the grants into effect “until it has agreement on a way of channelling cash that will not enable any interference by the government at all”.

“This may prove difficult in the current political environment,” said its spokesman Jon Liden, “so nobody should hold their breath about when these grants become active”.

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