The New York Times and other media outlets are reporting that Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is openly boycotting cabinet meetings as a means of protesting President Robert Mugabe’s party. NYT characterizes this as the “biggest breach yet in the new transitional government.”

More details below, read the full report here:

The catalyst for this step was the jailing Wednesday of Roy Bennett, Mr. Tsvangirai’s deputy agriculture minister-designate, a white farmer who is scheduled to stand trial Monday on three-year-old terrorism charges that his party, the Movement for Democratic Change, says are fabricated. But even after Mr. Bennett was grantedbail Friday after the news conference, officials in his party said their decision to disengage did not change.

“This is the time for us to say enough is enough,” said Thabitha Khumalo, a spokeswoman for the M.D.C.

Mr. Tsvangirai laid out a broad array of grievances. He accused Mr. Mugabe’s party, ZANU-PF, of selectively using the law as a weapon to punish his parliamentarians, putting 16,000 of its youth militia on the government payroll, and remilitarizing the countryside on bases used in last year’s discredited election to organize a campaign of terror against his supporters.

While he stopped short of quitting the government, Mr. Tsvangirai warned that if the crisis were not resolved and a working relationship restored he would call for United Nations-supervised elections.

Today President Obama hosted Zimbabwe Prime Minister Tsvangirai at the White House to discuss the countries’ affairs. According to Politico magazine, during the meeting Obama pledged $73 million in assistance and said:

There was a time when Zimbabwe was the breadbasket of Africa and continues to have enormous potential. It has gone through a very dark and difficult period politically… President Mugabe—I think I’ve made my views clear—has often times not acted in the best interests of the Zimbabwean people and has been resistant to the kinds of democratic changes that need to take place. We now have a power-sharing agreement that shows promise.

-Chris Scott

News sources are reporting that Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s wife, Susan, is dead after the two were involved in a head-on collision with a truck. The Prime Minister has reportedly been taken to a hospital with injuries, but details remain murky. You can read more here.

We’ll bring you more details as they arrive.

-Chris Scott

A few months ago, we wrote about the controversial presidential elections in Zimbabwe that left many up in arms after Robert Mugabe claimed power despite lingering unresolved questions about the election results. After a month and a half of negotiations between Mugabe’s government and the opposition, yesterday the two sides signed on to a power-sharing deal.

The agreement, which Tsvangirai calls the best hope for Zimbabwe, could be Zimbabwe’s first step towards peace and an opportunity to recover from the political and economic crises that have gripped the country for the past few months.

Excerpts below, full article here

The full details and content of the deal have not been confirmed but it proposes a 50-50 division of power, with Mr Mugabe remaining head of state and head of the cabinet.
Morgan Tsvangirai will head a council of ministers, which will be responsible for the day-to-day managing of the country’s affairs.

[Mugabe] said there were “lots of things” in the deal that neither leader liked but that they would work together to “find our way”.

“As long as salient principles are recognised, there will be room for more agreement,” Mr Mugabe said.

In his speech, Mr Tsvangirai said the agreement was a “product of painful compromises” and that it did not provide “an instant cure” to the fortunes of Zimbabwe. “I’ve signed this agreement because I believe it represents the best opportunity for us to build a peaceful and prosperous democratic Zimbabwe,” he said.

-Chris Scott

Zimbabwe’s run-off elections took place as scheduled last Friday, despite mounting protests from the African and international community and calls for a postponement. Standing unopposed, Mugabe announced himself victorious in the sham elections.

The few African observers who were present immediately called for the elections to be held again, stating that those who did vote did so only out of fear and intimidation. Many people were beaten for not voting or being able to prove that they voted. The official results showed that the 84-year old president won all ten provinces with 85.5% of the vote.

Archbishop Tutu called on African leaders to refuse to recognize Mugabe as president, US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice urged China, Russia and South Africa to back action against him. The US plans to toughen its sanctions against Zimbabwe and is urging the Security Council to do the same. Echoing Tsvanigirai’s earlier call for peacekeeping intervention, Tutu and Prime Minister of Kenya Raila Odinga called on the African Union to send troops to intervene in Zimbabwe.

Despite these outcries, Mugabe was sworn in on Sunday, stating in his speech that he hoped to form a unity government.

The African Union will meet today in Sharm El Shiekh and Zimbabwe will be on the agenda. Tsvangirai is expected to attend and appeal to African leaders not to recognize the re-election. Mugabe is also scheduled to be there and he will likely come under a lot of pressure at the AU meeting, after his own peers in the SADC have rejected the election. If African leaders do not unite on this issue, with a firm stand against Mugabe and non-recognition of him as a democratically elected President, the continent will no doubt have several more governance crises to contend with.

-Edith Jibunoh, ONE policy staff

Zimbabwe has been capturing international headlines this week after opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew only days before the July 27th run-off election. In an open letter delivered to the Zimbabwean Electoral Commission on Monday, Tsvangirai stated that “What has been going on … after the elections held on the 29th March 2008 is a clear testimony that the elections scheduled for the 27th June 2008 cannot be held efficiently, freely, fairly, transparently and in accordance with the law.” He cited numerous acts of intimidation, violence and vote-rigging undertaken by incumbent President Robert Mugabe’s forces in the past month.

Pressure is now mounting on Mugabe to cancel the election. Tsvangirai has called for the African Union to lead a peaceful transition in Zimbabwe with support from the UN and the Southern African Development Community. At an emergency meeting in Swaziland today, SADC called for the election to be postponed because of violence and yesterday, UN Security Council unanimously adopted a statement condemning the violence and saying that free and fair elections would be impossible to hold on 27 June. While the non-binding statement was significantly watered down from a draft version circulated by Western countries on the council, it represents the first time Zimbabwe has been criticized at the UN by South Africa, Russia and China.

Editorials in both The New York Times and the The Washington Postare demanding more decisive action by Zimbabwe’s African neighbors, particularly South Africa, as well as the UN Security Council.

Edith Jibunoh, ONE policy staffer stationed in Abuja Nigeria, wrote to share more about the background of the elections. You can read it all after the jump.

Stay tuned here for more updates and a closer look at how the crisis is impacting regular Zimbabweans.

-Nora Coghlan
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