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HARARE : Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe farmed out key ministries in a new unity government to his party in defiance of a long-awaited power-sharing deal, amid opposition outrage on Saturday at the "giant act of madness".
The Herald newspaper, a government organ, said the octogenarian leader had given his ZANU-PF 14 ministries, including the defence, home, foreign affairs, justice, local government and media portfolios.
Furthermore Mugabe -- in power since Zimbabwe's 1980 independence from Britain -- will retain control of the army, police and other state security apparatus, it said.
The shock announcement came just hours after negotiators for Mugabe, main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party and the head of a splinter MDC group urged former South African president Thabo Mbeki to once again resolve the latest deadlock.
The Mbeki-brokered power-sharing pact was signed on September 15. It came after the ruling party lost control of parliament in March elections for the first time and Mugabe's re-election in a controversial second round boycotted by Tsvangirai.
Mbeki will head for Zimbabwe Monday on a new mediation bid, his spokesman said.
"He's continuing with the mediation process," Mukoni Ratshitanga said. "We're going to Zimbabwe on Monday to discuss those very matters that are holding up the operationalisation of the power-sharing deal."
The MDC said Saturday's cabinet line-up was the "product of unilateral, contemptuous and outrageous machinations," stressing that only informal talks had been held on Friday on the break-up of posts but no decision taken.
"In fact, it is a giant act of madness which puts the whole deal into jeopardy," it said," stressing that the ruling party on Friday "wanted to take the ministries of finance, home affairs, local government and foreign affairs from the MDC."
The ruling party "cannot nocturnally allocate ministries barely hours after the three principals agreed to disagree by referring the matter to the mediator after a logjam over all key ministries," an MDC statement said.
According to the Herald report, Tsvangirai's MDC gets 13 portfolios, including constitutional and parliamentary affairs, economic planning and investment promotion, labour and social welfare, sport, arts and culture and science and technology development.
A splinter opposition grouping led by Arthur Mutambara will be in charge of education, regional integration and international co-operation and industry and commerce, the report added.
The latest impasse adds to Zimbabwe's woes which today is a far cry from its position 20 years ago when it was hailed as a model economy and a regional breadbasket.
The economy is in tatters since 2000 when Mugabe seized white-owned farms and handed them over to landless blacks, often with no farming skills. Its inflation rate soared to 231 million percent in July, the world's highest.
MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa urged fresh regional mediation to end the ruinous political crisis, which has added to the plight of citizens grappling with acute shortages of food and basic goods and a freefalling currency.
"There is a deadlock and it can only be broken through SADC (the Southern African Development Community) and its appointed mediator, Mbeki," he said.
"If you look at the list it's as good as running the government by themselves," Chamisa added.
But some urged the MDC to accept the spoils in the country's best interests.
"Zimbabweans are suffering and the MDC can use the ministries allocated to them to do what they can to improve the lot of Zimbabweans and rally the people to their cause," said Takavafira Zhou, a political scientist.
"Pulling out would be futile. If they pull out they would have to employ another strategy but what strategy can they use when ZANU-PF is in control of the army and the police?"
- AFP /ls
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