ZANU PF ACCUSES MDC OF PLOTTING A COUP

HARARE,

There is intensifying infighting in Zimbabwe’s unity government with President Robert Mugabe’s party accusing its coalition partners of trying to use the uneasy marriage to topple the veteran ruler, state media reported today.

The state-owned Herald newspaper, which is still a mouthpiece of Mr Mugabe’s Zanu PF said the principals in the Global Political Agreement (GPA) that include Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his deputy Professor Arthur Mutambara had a tension filled meeting on Monday.

“This was after MDC (led by Mr Tsvangirai) on Sunday issued a statement saying Zanu PF was on a journey to oblivion while their path was irreversible,” the paper said.

It said negotiators who hammered the deal that led to the formation of the coalition in February had to be called in to discuss issues affecting the inclusive government.

Mr Tsvangirai’s MDC has been complaining that President Mugabe was not committed to the full implementation of the agreement signed on September 15 last year.

The party referred a number of outstanding issues in the GPA including the appointment of the central bank governor and the attorney general to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) for arbitration.

SADC and the African Union are the guarantors of the agreement.

But Zanu PF turned the tables and accused the MDC formations of failing to meet their part of the bargain because they had failed to campaign for the lifting of sanctions and the closure of pirate radio stations.

Monday’s meeting showed that the parties were drifting further apart with the claims that the MDC wants to topple Mr Mugabe from power, the paper said.

It said the MDC stood accused of “approaching the inclusive government as a vehicle for President Mugabe’s ouster and not as an opportunity to rebuild the country.”

“Zanu PF believes that MDC has displayed insincerity for sometime now,” the Herald quoted an unnamed source. “They say MDC officials held a rally in Manicaland at the weekend in which they told their supporters that they would use the inclusive government to remove President Mugabe.