Tsvangirai colleague arrested before taking office

Hopes of a smooth transition for Zimbabwe's power-sharing government were dashed today when a leading member of the party opposing president Robert Mugabe was arrested.

Roy Bennett, a supporter of new prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai, had been expected to take his place in the Cabinet being formed.

Instead he was seized as he arrived at the airport in Harare, on Mugabe's orders according to insiders.

After months of delays Mugabe swore in rival Mr Tsvangirai to office on Wednesday in an effort to give Zimbabwe a coalition government that could address the country's serious economic and humanitarian problems.

The two were to jointly oversee a Cabinet of 31 - 15 people from Mugabe's ZANU-PF party, 13 from Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change and three from a breakaway opposition faction led by Arthur Mutambara.

Mr Tsvangirai had released his list of Cabinet nominees earlier, naming Mr Bennett as deputy agriculture minister.

His sudden arrest was typical of the delaying and disruptive tactics employed by Mugabe's supporters ever since he claimed victory in the country's rigged presidential election last year.

Mr Bennett, a white Zimbabwean fluent in the local Shona language, was one of three white MPs elected during 2000 parliamentary elections. In 2005, he served several months in prison for shoving the then-Justice Minister during a parliamentary debate after he insulted Mr Bennett.

More recently, Mr Bennett was among several opposition figures listed on an arrest warrant accusing the party of planning Mugabe's violent overthrow - charges widely dismissed as a ZANU-PF ploy to discredit its rivals.

A spokesman for Mr Tsvangirai said Mugabe arrived for today's Cabinet ceremony with surprise plans to swear-in seven ZANU-PF members as junior ministers. Only senior ministers were supposed to be appointed.

The move delayed the ceremony for two hours. It went ahead only after the parties agreed to discuss the seven junior ministers later.

Mugabe presided over the inaugurations, at one point warmly shaking the hand of Tendai Biti, a Tsvangirai aide taking over the finance ministry who has been among Mugabe's sharpest critics.

"It's been a long journey, but we are smiling and cracking jokes as if nothing happened before," Mugabe said in a speech.

He said the first Cabinet meeting would be next Tuesday.

"We have the experience," Mugabe said. "We are going to teach them to understand how we must work together."

South African President Kgalema Motlanthe, who attended the ceremony, had pushed through the unity government deal along with other regional heads of state, insisting it was the only way to break Zimbabwe's political deadlock.

However, some Tsvangirai allies say he never should have agreed to serve as prime minister alongside Mugabe, who has led the country for nearly three decades and is accused of engineering its economic collapse and trampling on democracy.

Mugabe, meanwhile, was under pressure from the military and government officials who do not want to give up power.

Among Mugabe loyalists who held onto Cabinet posts were Didymus Mutasa, the veteran former security minister, Patrick Chinamasa, the former justice minister, and Emmerson Mnangagwa, seen as a possible successor to Mugabe in his ZANU-PF party.