Delay adds fears over Zimbabwe power deal

Key parts of Zimbabwe’s power-sharing deal will not take effect for at least a month, it emerged today.

Parliament has to assemble and make the necessary constitutional changes, a senior aide to President Robert Mugabe said.

Patrick Chinamasa’s comments in the government-controlled Herald newspaper were likely to add to concerns that Mugabe’s agreement to yield some power for the first time in 28 years will founder on delay and political dissension.

The constitution needs to be changed to create the post of prime minister, which will be filled by Morgan Tsvangirai under the power-sharing deal. Mugabe remains president.

The deal has been criticised privately by some in the opposition who are unhappy that it gives Mugabe too much power and the chance to play on tensions between the two opposition groups.

Mugabe’s party and officials from the two parties with whom he will share power were supposed to meet yesterday to discuss how to share Cabinet posts, but the talks were indefinitely postponed without explanation.

It was unclear when the new government would be sworn in.

Constitutional amendments would “regularise” the agreement signed by Mugabe, Mr Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, leader of a faction that broke away from Mr Tsvangirai’s opposition party, Chinamasa said.

The deal creates 31 ministers – 15 from Mugabe’s party, 13 from Mr Tsvangirai’s and three from Mr Mutambara’s.

Filling them will mean pushing out Mugabe loyalists who now hold Cabinet posts.

Zimbabweans are desperate for a political solution so their leaders can concentrate on a growing economic crisis. The country has the world’s highest inflation rate even by the official figure of at 11 million %, and independent economists put it much higher. Food and other basics are scarce, and aid agencies say more and more Zimbabweans are going hungry.

The international Red Cross said today its trucks would leave warehouses in the main Zimbabwe cities of Harare, Bulawayo and Mutare, carrying nearly 400 tons of maize, beans and cooking oil for the some 24,000 needy Zimbabweans. More shipments will follow in coming months.

And the nation’s central bank put a new 1,000 Zimbabwe dollar note into circulation, an acknowledgement of inflation’s effect on the buying power of the 500 Zimbabwe dollar note that had been the largest denomination.

Mugabe’s critics say his policies – including his orders in 2000 that white-owned farms be seized and given to blacks – led to the economic collapse.