Deal considered to oust Mugabe

President Robert Mugabe would resign and a new power-sharing government would be formed under a deal that has been discussed by Zimbabwe’s ruling party and opposition officials, mediators said today.

The offer was made by two of the ruling party’s most powerful figures - Parliament speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa and armed forces chief of staff Gen Vitalis Zvinavashe – and was an effort to help Zimbabwe regain international legitimacy and renewed aid and investment during a period of transitional rule, the mediators said.

The mediators, fearing allegations of treason if the deal collapses, said assurances Mugabe would step down were conveyed to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

A power-sharing government would try to end an economic meltdown that has sent inflation soaring, caused a massive fuel shortage and left at least half Zimbabwe’s population on the verge of starvation.

Mugabe, who led the nation to independence in 1980, won a new six-year term in elections last March that independent observers said were deeply flawed.

The MDC, along with Britain, the European Union and the United States, have refused to accept results, saying voting was rigged and influenced by violence and intimidation.

The early retirement of Mugabe, once seen as a towering African statesman, has long seemed inconceivable.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai confirmed receiving the offer and, in a departure from recent opposition policy, said his party’s lawmakers were ready to vote with the ruling party for a constitutional amendment allowing the creation of a caretaker government once Mugabe stepped down.

Any agreement would include guarantees of immunity for Mugabe, 78, from prosecution over alleged misrule and human rights violations during his 23 years in power, Tsvangirai said.

Ruling party officials were unavailable for comment.

There has been no word on an offer from Mugabe himself, who was scheduled to head home from a two-week holiday that included a trip to Thailand. He is expected to return to his office tomorrow.

His absence as the nation faced food and petrol shortages has fanned harsh criticism at home.

The MDC has repeatedly called for Mugabe to go on trial.

“Regrettably, we may have said that. It may have been a position. Circumstances dictate behaviour. The country is on its knees. If people are asked to make that sacrifice of giving him immunity, and to say, ’Let’s forget the past and move forward,’ let it be. We have more to lose by getting bogged down until the country collapses and more to gain by saying this is a hurdle we have overcome,” Tsvangirai said.

Over the past three years, Mugabe’s government has seized most of the nation’s thousands of white-owned commercial farms, calling it a justified struggle by landless blacks to correct colonial era injustices that left 4,000 whites with one-third of the nation’s farm land.

Farming disruptions and poor rains have led to the food crisis and coupled with political chaos and the government’s increasing isolation, have led to acute shortages of hard currency and essential imports.

“There is wide consensus Mugabe is the problem and national and party dialogue must begin. Colleagues have shifted the blame onto him and he must accept the consequences,” said one mediator who spoke on condition on anonymity.

Under the constitution, new elections must be held within 90 days of the president leaving office.

Tsvangirai said his party was prepared to support a parliamentary vote for a constitutional amendment “to vary that period” until conditions for fresh elections were suitable.

“If they are talking of two years or 18 months, that now is subject to specific negotiations,” he said.

The MDC had previously demanded independently supervised elections after six months of any transitional rule.

Tsvangirai said he had not received “categoric assurances” from the full ruling party leadership that Mugabe would resign.

“I can only go as far as to say as far as Mnangagwa and Zvinavashe were concerned, it’s part of the deal,” he said.

“It is obvious Mugabe has become a liability to his party and the nation as a whole,” Tsvangirai said.

The MDC would not insist Mugabe go into exile, he said.