Word: pf
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Zimbabwe's neighbors, grouped as the Southern African Development Community (SADC), were called in to mediate after Mugabe's Zanu-PF Party and the MDC failed to agree on how to allocate the 31 Cabinet posts in a prospective unity government. The ruling party insists on retaining control over the police, army and intelligence apparatuses, which have been the bedrock of its control. But the MDC expected to be given authority over the Ministry of Home Affairs, which controls the police force, and it warned last Friday that it would stay out of any new government in which it were...
...crisis, which tends to spill over Zimbabwe's borders, will also keep the SADC focused on Zimbabwe's political stalemate and potentially weaken Mugabe's legitimacy among his peers. "I think he cares about that," says Makumbe. "And if he doesn't care, some of his members in Zanu-PF care, because they can see the suffering of the people, and their own businesses are going to the dogs. They don't see a future for this country or themselves without...
...Zanu-PF would be quite happy to govern without the participation of an opposition party against which it has repeatedly unleashed systemic violence, except for the fact that only with the MDC on board will Zimbabwe be able to attract the international aid and investment desperately needed to avoid social and economic collapse. Mugabe's party is widely seen internationally as having stolen the election, and international donors and investors are unlikely to do anything that might be seen as propping up his regime. And the social and economic pressure on Mugabe is clearly mounting. (See pictures of Robert Mugabe...
...fact that Zanu-PF needs the MDC's support to stay in power creates a dilemma for the opposition, which risks diluting its own popular legitimacy by joining a government over whose decisions it would have limited influence. "[The MDC has] the choice between the devil and the dark sea," says Elinor Sisulu, a Zimbabwean analyst and human rights activist. "Already people are saying that Zimbabwe is in this mess because these politicians are bickering over a Cabinet post...
...Harare-based political analyst John Makumbe told TIME that the MDC still hopes to force more concessions out of Zanu-PF as the price for joining a government. Unless a government that includes the MDC can be formed in the next few months, most experts agree, Zimbabwe's future looks dire. Without the MDC, "Mugabe won't be able to change anything to avoid disaster," says Sisulu. "He will have to keep ruling through violence." And while he has proved all too willing to unleash his security forces on opposition supporters, at some point the economic collapse could begin...