"Leaked documents and information gathered from various sources show that the unsuccessful deal, far from ensuring a changing political landscape favouring Tsvangirai who polled the most votes in March 29 elections, would have entrenched Mugabe’s grip on power.
The documents show this 50-50 power arrangement was clearly in favour of Mugabe who would remain Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and head of government as well as head of state.
Tsvangirai refused to sign the agreement nearly two weeks ago in order
to "reflect and consult".
Sources have revealed that top among Tsvangirai’s worries was paragraph
2 of the document titled Role of the Prime Minister.
While the paragraph stipulated that the prime minister would carry the responsibility to oversee the formulation of policies by the Cabinet, it also spelt out that Tsvangirai would not be the man in charge — he would only be "a Member of the Cabinet and its Deputy Chairperson".
This arrangement left Mugabe, in accordance with the Zimbabwe constitution, as the head of Cabinet.
To make matters worse for Tsvangirai, who had insisted that he heads the cabinet, according paragraph 11 he would "report regularly to the president."
Such reports confirm what many thought Mugabe would try, and apparently with the support of Mbeki, to bully Tsvangarai into accepting a position that appeared to be power-sharing, but in reality would have allowed Mugabe to report to the world he is sharing power with the opposition. The same opposition whose leaders and supporters have been on the receiving end of brutal political violence over the past 4 months, and before this.
Allan Little, writing for the BBC a few weeks ago, explained how similar these negotiations appear compared with Mugabe's negotiations in 1988 to bring Joshua Nkomo into a unity government. Like Tsvangarai, Nkomo was the leader of the opposition, ,ZAPU, who had suffered untold horrors and terrible abuses at the hands of Mugabe's 5th Brigade in beginning in 1983--including the killings of thousands of Ndebele civilians and ZAPU organizers--and again in 1985and then the party youth during the 1985 elections.
Little's article, "Nkomo's ghost haunts Zimbabwe talks", comments on the extreme pressures on Tsvangarai not to accept a compromised power sharing as Nkomo had done in 1988. Little writes:
" Ruthless campaign
Mr Mugabe fought him [Nkomo] for five years.
He destroyed him in two ways. First he sent into Matabeleland the ruthless, North Korea-trained Fifth brigade. Thousands of Mr Nkomo's supporters were murdered and their bodies dumped in mass graves in a two-year operation known as Gukurahundi.
Mr Mugabe used what, on the face of it, was sold to the world as a power-sharing agreement to consolidate his own one party state.
Then - and this was a master stroke - Mr Mugabe reached an agreement with Mr Nkomo: a power-sharing agreement.
Mr Nkomo was brought into the
government as vice-president.
Officially, the two political parties merged to form Zanu-PF, but in reality Mr Mugabe's party swallowed Mr Nkomo's Zapu party whole.
Mr Nkomo was neutralised, destroyed.
Mr Mugabe used what, on the face of it, was sold to the world as a power-sharing agreement to consolidate his own one-party state.
It entrenched his dictatorship for 20 years."
So far Morgan Tsvangarai's ability to not cave in to pressures from Mbeki and SADC to accept what appears to have a similarly weak position in Mugabe's government has allowed him and the MDC to avoid Nkomo's fate. But now what?
Monday brings the opening of Parliament and the all-important election of the Speaker of Parliament. With the MDC having 100 seats and ZANU-PF 99, the votes of the lone independent Jason Moyo and the MDC-Mutambara faction with 10 seats, it will be interesting to see how the parties align. It will also be interesting to see if some of the MDC-Tsvangarai faction MPs still in hiding from death threats will even be able to appear in parliament.
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