'It's power grabbing'
2008-10-12 23:10
Special Report
Zimbabwe’s PM Morgan Tsvangirai has called for openness in the country’s nascent diamond trade, getting underway after the lifting of a global ban over rights abuses.
A dusty road leads to the village of Wedza, where veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war eke out a meagre living on their farm cooperative, which after a promising start now brings only despair.
Harare - Zimbabwe's opposition leader threatened on Sunday to pull out of a national unity government if President Robert Mugabe refuses to cede control of key ministries.
Morgan Tsvangirai slammed an official government list published on Saturday that gave all the main ministries, including defence, home and foreign affairs, justice, mining and land to Mugabe's party.
It allocated only lesser ministries to the Movement for Democratic Change, which won a slight Parliamentary majority in elections earlier this year.
"An idiot wouldn't accept that," Tsvangirai told a rally of 15 000 supporters.
"That is not power sharing, it is power grabbing."
"Robert Mugabe, stop that because if you don't, we have no right to be part of such an arrangement (government)," Tsvangirai said.
Talks deadlocked
Tsvangirai won the first round of presidential elections in March but refused to take part in a run-off because of widespread violence against his supporters.
A power-sharing agreement signed on September 15 gave Tsvangirai the post of Prime Minister, but talks have since deadlocked over the allocation of Cabinet seats.
Tsvangirai said that if Mugabe's Zanu-PF party retained the defence portfolio, which is in charge of the armed forces, then the Movement for Democratic Change must be given Home Affairs, which is responsible for the police.
"This is not negotiable," said Tsvangirai, whose supporters have suffered from police brutality.
He said he would continue to negotiate in good faith when mediator Thabo Mbeki arrived on Monday.
Suffer more
"But that doesn't mean compromise for compromise sake," he said.
"If it means we have to suffer some more to get what the people expect then we will suffer more," he said.
"Raise your hands if you are prepared to suffer more," he exclaimed and the crowd raised their hands in unison.
"Yes, you are prepared to suffer," he said.
Mugabe's party maintains that Mbeki only needs to mediate over one outstanding ministry - finance - and claims all other ministries are settled.
Under the power-sharing agreement, the opposition gets 16 Cabinet seats and Mugabe's party gets 15, reflecting official results of parliamentary elections held in March.
- AP