Zimbabwe Talks Gridlocked over Power Sharing
July 29, 2008
Johannesburg, South Africa
A proposal by Zimbabwe’s ruling party to give Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai the Vice Presidency has been rejected by his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), throwing talks to resolve the country’s political crisis into gridlock. MDC sources say the deadlock manifested Monday because ruling ZANU-PF negotiators had been instructed by President Robert Mugabe to negotiate only around the Vice Presidency. MDC rejected the proposal to play second fiddle, citing their parliamentary majority and Tsvangirai’s victory in the March 29 first round election, in which he beat Mugabe before pulling out of a subsequent runoff amid allegations of a violent ZANU-PF campaign. [PE]