Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) ministers boycotted a cabinet meeting chaired by President Robert Mugabe yesterday, saying it had been brought forward to stop prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai from presiding over it.
Mr Tsvangirai’s MDC party formed a fragile coalition government with Mr Mugabe’s Zanu-PF in February, raising hopes this would end a long-running political crisis and a decade of economic ruin.
Mr Mugabe chairs cabinet meetings held every Tuesday and Mr Tsvangirai presides in his absence.
Thokozani Khupe, deputy prime minister, said Mr Mugabe was due to leave for Libya later yesterday and Mr Tsvangirai, who has returned from a tour of European countries and the United States, would have presided over the meeting today.
Ms Khupe told journalists the decision was one of several unilateral moves made by Mr Mugabe in disregard of a political agreement reached last year. “The decision seeks to deny the recognition of the prime minister as chair of cabinet when the president is away. This reflects unilateralism, disrespect, contempt and the refusal to recognise reality,” he said. Zanu-PF officials were not immediately available to comment.
During his overseas tour, Mr Tsvangirai sought to play down disagreements with Mr Mugabe, saying he had a working relationship with the 85-year-old leader.
But Ms Khupe said Mr Mugabe continued to violate the political agreement, including failing to swear in senior MDC official Roy Bennett as deputy agriculture minister, while the national security council had never met because “a few elite securocrats do not recognise the authority of the new order”.
She said Zanu-PF was frustrating media reforms while MDC legislators and civil society members continued to be victimised and arrested.
Seven MDC MPs have been arrested, charged and convicted on various charges from political violence to kidnapping.
On Monday, the party said its MP for Mutare West had been sentenced to seven years in jail on kidnap charges as part of what it called a plan by “Zanu-PF and other retrogressive forces in the inclusive government” to whittle down the party’s majority in parliament.
The MDC has asked the regional Southern African Development Community to mediate in a dispute over the appointment of the central bank governor and attorney general.
“For a long time we have remained the polite and subservient upholders of the GPA (global political agreement),” said Ms Khupe. “Whilst we remain fundamentally committed to the GPA in the interests of our people, it is our constitutional right to consider disengagement,” she said without elaborating.
Mr Tsvangirai has said his party would not quit the unity government and said on Saturday that Western pressure for Mr Mugabe’s removal could lead to chaos in Zimbabwe. Western donors, crucial for Zimbabwe’s recovery from a 10-year economic crisis, have said their aid will only flow to the southern African country when reforms are implemented. – (Reuters)