DEPUTY PM MUTAMBARA . . . criticised last week’s detention of Roy Bennett

HARARE – Zimbabwean Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara on Monday said his smaller MDC party will attend today’s Cabinet meeting, breaking ranks with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s larger MDC-T party that has announced a partial boycott of the coalition government because of differences with President Robert Mugabe.

Mutambara’s MDC is seen as holding the balance of power in the coalition because the MDC-T and Mugabe’s ZANU PF parties control an almost equal number of seats in Parliament and would each require the support of the smaller party to pass laws.

The Deputy Premier criticised last week’s detention of top Tsvangirai ally, Roy Bennett, and called for the resolution of several outstanding issues holding back the unity government and that were also cited by the MDC-T when it announced its decision to boycott the government.

But Mutambara said his party will attend Cabinet to condemn Mugabe’s conduct in his face.

“We are going to go there (Cabinet) to condemn . . . Robert Mugabe in his face. We are going to Cabinet to go and express disgust with the way Roy Bennett’s case was handled,” Mutambara told journalists in Harare.

Mutambara – whose party is independent of Tsvangirai’s group although it broke away from the latter – said he sympathised with his former opposition colleagues’ decision to boycott government and warned Mugabe not to collapse the coalition government because he has no legitimacy outside the power-sharing arrangement.

“How can he run this country alone? If this Global Political Agreement (power-sharing agreement) is to collapse I would say to Robert Mugabe, you are not the President of Zimbabwe. You are an illegitimate leader,” Mutambara said.

Zimbabwe’s coalition government is in the grip of the worst crisis of its eight-month existence after Tsvangirai and his MDC-T party said they would no longer attend Cabinet and were cutting all contact with Mugabe and his ZANU PF party until all outstanding issues are resolved.

Tsvangirai left Harare on Monday for South Africa, the first part of a mission to persuade regional leaders to intervene to end the crisis and save Zimbabwe’s coalition government.

He was expected to meet President Jacob Zuma before proceeding to Mozambique on Tuesday for talks with President Armando Guebuza who chairs the Southern African Development Community SADC)'s special organ on politics, defence and security.

The SADC that brokered the power-sharing agreement between Tsvangirai and Mugabe is alongside the African Union a guarantor of the pact. The SADC tasked its defence and security organ to monitor the Zimbabwe power-sharing deal.

Tsvangirai also planned to travel to Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo to brief the leaders of those countries on what he says is Mugabe’s refusal to fulfill commitments made under the power-sharing agreement including the veteran President’s refusal to swear in Bennett as deputy agriculture minister.

Mugabe has refused to swear in Bennett saying he must first be cleared of terrorism charges. But Tsvangirai says the terrorism charges are false and politically motivated to prevent Bennett – a white farmer – from taking up his job in the new government.

Tsvangirai says the trial of Bennett and several other top MDC officials in the past months is a violation of commitment by Mugabe to halt all politically motivated prosecutions.

In addition, the Premier says Mugabe also breached the power-sharing agreement by appointing his allies to head the central bank and the Attorney General’s office without consulting his coalition partners.

Mugabe has not publicly commented on the MDC-T’s boycott of government but his spokesman George Charamba at the weekend called the move a non-event and said Cabinet would meet today as usual with or without Tsvangirai’s party.

Analysts say the MDC-T and ZANU PF do not want to see the coalition government collapse because both stand to benefit from its continued existence. But they warn that incessant squabbling between the two biggest parties in the coalition could in the long run cripple the administration and damage its long-term effectiveness. — ZimOnline