Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, second from left, and opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, second from right, signed a power-sharing accord in Harare after more than 28 years of unbroken power of Mugabe.
POLITICS
Robert Mugabe has been opposed by the new parliament elected in March. The chairman of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Lovemore Moyo, has beaten Mr Mugabe’s candidate as speaker.
The two main partues failed to agree on who should hold executive power. As a matter of fact, the opposition party has refused to sign a deal that would leave key powers in Mr Mugabe’s hands. Thus the Zimbabwean leader had violated ground rules stipulating that the new parliament should not be convened. Several MDC parliamentary members have already been arrested. For this reason, the MDC leaders went to the South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki, mandated by the region’s leaders to mediate in the talks.Mr Mugabe firmly controls the Senate and under the present constitution can rule by decree. He was expected to form a new cabinet, in violation of the agreement signed with the MDC when negotiations started. In the meantime, Mr Mbeki and the region’s other leaders had nonetheless stayed silent.
Almost six months after a disputed election and years into a political crisis that has left the country under Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s political rivals finally appear to have found common ground. On Thursday September 11th, President Robert Mugabe and two opposition leaders, Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, agreed to a power-sharing deal after many weeks of negotiation. The gist of the deal appears to rest on Mr Mugabe’s remaining the country’s head of state while Mr Tsvangirai becomes prime minister. A council of ministers has been created under Mr Tsvangirai’s authority, while Mr Mugabe will keep chairing the cabinet.
The constitution will be amended immediately to accommodate the provisions of the deal, but a new one will be drawn up within the next 18 months, after which fresh elections should be held. Therefore, the power-sharing arrangement is to be reviewed every year. The exact roles of the cabinet and the newly created council of ministers, and how they will interact with each other, is not clear. The MDC seems confident but there is a risk that Mr Mugabe will still be able to pull many strings and potentially neuter the opposition’s role.
Western governments have said that they would not prop up a government that did not reflect the results of the election in March, which saw the MDC win the most seats in parliament.
For now, the European Union, which is set to review its list of targeted sanctions in the next few days, seems to have adopted a wait-and-see attitude.
ECONOMY
The central bank has failed to rein in hyperinflation—officially over 11m% but in reality probably over 40m%. So devalued is Zimbabwe’s currency that the bank was forced to announce this week that it would allow some shops to trade in foreign exchange. Farming and manufacturing have collapsed, and shortages are crippling. Some 2m people urgently need food handouts, a number likely to swell to 5m by early next year.
