Tsvangirai Misses SADC Troika Meeting On Zimbabwe
Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai will not attend today’s summit of the regional SADC grouping’s security Troika, derailing efforts by the body to resolve Zimbabwe’s political crisis.
Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party said he and his team of negotiators were not attending the summit in Swaziland after President Robert Mugabe’s government denied the opposition chief a passport to leave the country, giving him an emergency travel document valid for three days only.
The MDC urged the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to convene an extraordinary summit to look into Zimbabwe’s deadlocked power-sharing deal.
“He is not going. He was denied a passport,” MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told ZimOnline in Harare. “Our negotiators are also no longer going to Swaziland. They cannot go in the absence of our principal.”
Mugabe’s government has refused to issue Tsvangirai with a new passport for over three months after his old one was used up.
MDC chief negotiator Tendai Biti, who was in South Africa on his way to Swaziland before abandoning the trip, told journalists Mugabe and his ruling ZANU PF party were not ready for a unity government outlined under the September 15 power-sharing deal.
Biti said: “ZANU PF is not ready for a corporate government. It is continuing to work as if everything is normal in the country which is full of total collapse on all sectors . . . that is why we are saying its time that a full extraordinary summit for SADC must be held to look on the issue of Zimbabwe.
“We want an extraordinary SADC summit to look at the outstanding issues and to say enough is enough to ZANU PF and Robert Mugabe . . . SADC has that capacity to put a full stop to the crisis in Zimbabwe.”
Today’s meeting of the heads of state of Angola, Swaziland and Mozambique – comprising SADC’s organ on politics, defence and security – is aimed at trying to help Zimbabwe’s political rivals break a deadlock in negotiations on forming a Cabinet.
Mugabe arrived in Swaziland’s capital, Mbabane, on Sunday evening.
ZANU PF chief negotiator Patrick Chinamasa told journalists before leaving Harare that Mugabe’s party would resist any attempts by the SADC troika to dictate how the Zimbabwean parties should share key ministries in a unity government.
Zimbabwe’s historic power-sharing deal that was brokered by former South African President Thabo Mbeki on behalf of SADC retains Mugabe as president while Tsvangirai will become prime minister. Arthur Mutambara, who heads a splinter faction of the MDC, becomes deputy prime minister.
The agreement allots 15 Cabinet posts to ZANU PF, 13 to the Tsvangirai’s MDC and three to Mutambara’s faction.
However it is silent about who gets which specific posts and the rival parties have since the signing of the agreement wrangled over who should control the most powerful ministries such as defence, finance and home affairs.
Mugabe two weeks ago unilaterally allocated all powerful ministries to ZANU PF and Tsvangirai – who insists the MDC will not accept a junior role in the unity government – has said he will quit the deal if the veteran President does not reverse his decision on ministries.
A new government in Zimbabwe will have to move with speed to end an unprecedented economic crisis that is highlighted by the world’s highest inflation of 231 million percent, acute shortages of food, fuel, electricity, hard cash and every basic survival commodity.
(Source)
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