Johannesburg - Powersharing talks between Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party and the opposition Movement
for Democratic Change broke down Monday, sources within and close to
to the MDC reported.
An MDC official in Zimbabwe told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that
the talks had reached an impasse over the distribution of posts in
the proposed new government.
A Western NGO source close to the MDC also confirmed the talks had
hit a stalemate.
Representatives from Zanu-PF and two factions of the MDC - the
majority faction led by Morgan Tsvangirai and a smaller faction led
by Arthur Mutambara - began talks four days ago on the formation of
an 'inclusive' government, as called for by the African Union at a
summit in June.
The talks, scheduled to take place over two weeks in South Africa,
had always been expected to be difficult, given deep-seated enmity
between Mugabe's party and Morgan Tsvangirai's nine-year-old MDC.
The MDC official told dpa that Tsvangirai's position in the
proposed unity government was unclear.
The MDC defeated Zanu-PF in March parliamentary elections, and
Tsvangirai took more votes than Mugabe in the first round of voting
for president on the same day.
Mugabe went on to contest the violent run-off election solo and
was inaugurated as president in late June for a further five years.
The MDC has proposed that Mugabe remain on as president with
reduced ceremonial powers and that Tsvangirai would occupy a new
executive prime ministerial post.
But Zanu-PF has ruled out Mugabe having anything other than a
leadership role in the new government.
juhaJul 29th, 2008 - 03:35:16
and what reason does Mugabe want to reconized as president...certainly not the so called runoff where the ZanuPF beat, tortured, murdered and raped any supporters of the opposition. Mbeke just arrest Mugabe, he has no powers or diplomatic ammunity, simple as that...and guess what, Mbeke might save face if he did arrest Mugabe. right now the road to ruin lies in any support for Mugabe.
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