Mugabe vows early elections
2008-12-05 14:10
Special Report
Zimbabwean prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai says there has been progress in talks between the country's two political parties.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe says he doesn't expect the US sanctions on his country to be lifted soon.
Harare - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe brandished the threat of fresh elections in a bid to force through a stalled power-sharing deal as the United States called for him to quit.
As a cholera epidemic in the crisis-wracked country worsened, a defiant Mugabe lashed the opposition Movement for Democratic for refusing to join a national unity government in which he would remain as president.
Neighbouring South Africa meanwhile said it was time for an end to "political point-scoring" while US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the negotiations being conducted by Mugabe with the MDC were a "sham".
"It is well past time for Robert Mugabe to leave," said Rice during a brief visit to Copenhagen. "I think that is now obvious."
In an address on Thursday night, Mugabe showed he was in no mood to bow to MDC demands to hand over control of the key interior ministry, saying he would call early elections if the two sides could not work together.
"We agreed to give them (the MDC) 13 ministries while we share the ministry of home affairs, but if the arrangement fails to work in the next one-and-a-half to two years, then we would go for elections," Mugabe was quoted as saying by The Herald, a government newspaper.
Zimbabwe has been in political limbo since elections in March when the opposition wrested control of parliament from Mugabe's party and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai pushed Mugabe into second place in a presidential poll.
But Tsvangirai pulled out of a run-off poll in June after dozens of his supporters were killed in attacks blamed on Mugabe supporters.
The two rivals signed an agreement in September to share power, but it has yet to be implemented after fierce disagreements over who should control key ministries.
Tsvangirai says he wants to join a unity government but Mugabe must give up the interior ministry after keeping hold of the defence ministry.
In comments made to his Zanu-PF party's politburo and reported by The Herald, Mugabe accused the MDC of trying to destroy the power-sharing agreement.
"The MDC should say no if they do not want to be part of the inclusive government," said Mugabe, 84, who has ruled the former British colony since independence in 1980.
While Tsvangirai and Mugabe at loggerheads, the country has been steadily collapsing amid an inflation rate last put at 231 million percent.
With the government now unable to afford the chemicals needed to ensure a clean water supply, a cholera epidemic has swept across the country and even crossed the border into South Africa.
In its latest bulletin on Friday, the UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the outbreak had now claimed 575 lives with a total of 12 700 cases.
The capital Harare is the worst-hit district with 179 deaths and 6 448 cases as of December 4, it said in a statement.
- AFP