PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe said on Saturday he was working to resolve a political dispute threatening his power-sharing government with rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC party.
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said a fortnight ago it was "disengaging" from cabinet until Mugabe agreed to fully implement the fragile coalition's power-sharing deal, including swearing in several MDC officials.
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe said on Saturday he was working to resolve a political dispute threatening his power-sharing government with rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC party.
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said a fortnight ago it was "disengaging" from cabinet until Mugabe agreed to fully implement the fragile coalition's power-sharing deal, including swearing in several MDC officials.
Speaking at the burial of Misheck Chando, a senior member of his Zanu PF party on Saturday, Mugabe again condemned the MDC's partial boycott of the government as "baffling and illogical," but said the issue had to be addressed as a domestic issue.
"We are glad that we are talking about it. We are treating it as a domestic political problem, and our attitude is that ultimately it is up to us as Zimbabweans to sort out our problems," he said in a mixture of English and Shona.
Mugabe gave no further details or made reference to the mediation efforts of the 15-nation Southern African Development Community which had a ministerial team in Harare on Friday.
Tsvangirai and his officials did not attend the funeral at Harare Heroes' Acre, a national shrine where Mugabe's Zanu PF movement has been burying mostly veterans of Zimbabwe's 1970s liberation war since it won power at independence in 1980. Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara, leader of a rival MDC faction which is also represented in the power sharing government, was at the funeral.
Mugabe accused Western powers of "endlessly and shamelessly" interfering in Zimbabwe's domestic affairs and said the national economy had suffered under sanctions imposed in a drive to oust his party.
"They are trying to direct the way our politics should go. They are not ashamed. They want us to go down on our knees."
Mugabe -- who was speaking a day after regional officials announced that Southern African states would soon hold a summit on the Zimbabwe crisis -- said even in cases where Zimbabweans seek outside help, they have the ultimate responsibility to resolve domestic disputes.
The veteran 85-year old president sounded slightly conciliatory to the MDC on Saturday, saying he only wonders about his rivals' political strategy of "one leg in and one leg out of the power-sharing government."
“When you have, as a party, and even as individuals, taken a stand that you shall work together with your political neighbours and your neighbours reciprocate it, then the requirement is that we indeed continue, step by step, and work together,” Mugabe said. “Whatever the difficulties become our difficulties together. Whatever the positive steps become our achievements together.
“For one party on an odd day to decide we shall not be fully in, we shall have one leg in and one leg out, then you begin to wonder: Have I entered into agreement with persons who do not understand?
“MDC-T is saying we are out, but we are still in. I don’t know what that means … this logic where you agree and disagree, where you disagree and agree. It’s quite new.”
Besides refusing to swear in some of its members into government, the MDC accuses Zanu PF -- which it calls an "arrogant and unreliable partner" of persecuting its officials and delaying media and constitutional reforms that will be key to holding free and fair elections in about two years.
Mugabe says he has met obligations under the power-sharing deal and maintains the MDC needs to campaign for the lifting of Western sanctions against his Zanu PF, including travel restrictions and a freeze on general financial aid to Zimbabwe. - Reuters
Source.newzimbabwe.com
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