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HARARE : President Robert Mugabe and the opposition will wield equal power in a unity government aimed at ending Zimbabwe's protracted political crisis and economic meltdown, sources said Friday.
While details of Thursday's accord will be formally unveiled on Monday, a source close to the talks told AFP that both the veteran leader and opposition boss Morgan Tsvangirai would co-lead the economically battered nation.
"Mugabe will chair cabinet, while Tsavangirai takes charge of a national security council which consists of 31 cabinet ministers," said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
"Power will be shared, no one will get more power than the other party, even (in) the hiring and firing of cabinet members," the source explained.
"All decisions are made by the council, but the council will have to report back to Mugabe."
South African newspapers also said Friday the pact provided for a 50-50 unity government.
Zimbabwe's economy has collapsed over the past decade with the world's highest inflation rate, chronic shortages of foreign currency and food, skyrocketing unemployment and widespread hunger.
Authorities have tried measures including price controls to cushion shoppers against price increases but these have fuelled the black market where scarce goods are readily available at more than 30 times the official price.
Once hailed as a model economy, Zimbabwe's fortunes have nosedived since 2000 when Mugabe seized white-owned farms and handed them over to landless blacks, often with no farming skills.
While South Africa, whose president Thabo Mbeki mediated the talks congratulated Zimbabweans over the "historic" deal, the European Commission on Friday was cautious, saying that it wants to see how the agreement plays out.
"The European Commission of course welcomes this significant step forward," said John Clancy, commission spokesman on humanitarian aid and development issues.
"However we will have to wait to learn much more about this on Monday," he said. "At this stage we are cautiously optimistic".
The European Union said it was reconsidering Friday plans to extend its sanctions against Zimbabwe, following the Harare deal, according to the French EU presidency.
"We will have to evaluate the situation during the day," said a senior presidency diplomat.
EU ambassadors, preparing a meeting of European foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday, drew up proposals on Thursday to extend the existing visa-ban and assets-freeze sanctions to 10 more individuals in Zimbabwe.
However, that decision came shortly before the announcement of the deal in Harare.
In July, the EU already widened its sanctions against Mugabe's regime and other figures, adding 37 names to the list of individuals subject to a visa ban and whose assets have been frozen, and four companies.
Those were in addition to 131 Zimbabweans already on the banned list, including Mugabe and his wife Grace.
The agreement reached late Thursday after four days of tough and intensive negotiations, ends a political crisis following March polls in which Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party was routed for the first time since independence from Britain in 1980.
Mugabe was elected unopposed in a June run-off shunned by Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who cited state-sponsored violence on his supporters.
-AFP/yt
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