Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader sounded optimistic as negotiations on a power-sharing deal paused, preparing for a restart yesterday.
The latest round of talks opened on Monday at a Harare hotel with the mediator, South African President Thabo Mbeki, flying in to push negotiators past a major block: The question of whether Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe or main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai should have the top position in a unity government.
“There’s been a positive development,” Tsvangirai said as the negotiators went home for the night on Tuesday.
He said talks would resume yesterday.
MEETING POSTPONED
Meanwhile, the Southern African Development Community’s defense committee postponed a meeting to discuss the political crisis in Zimbabwe.
The meeting was due to take place in Swaziland yesterday, South African Foreign Ministry spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said in a phone interview.
He did not give a reason for the postponement.
South African President Thabo Mbeki is still expected to attend the meeting in Swaziland today, Mamoepa said.
The members of the SADC committee, known as the security troika, are Swaziland, Mozambique and Angola.
Tsvangirai’s party won the most votes in legislative and presidential elections in March. Mugabe subsequently was the only candidate in a presidential runoff that followed an onslaught of state-sponsored violence against Tsvangirai’s supporters and was widely denounced as a sham.
Tsvangirai had said he should be head of government and Mugabe should be head of state — a largely ceremonial position. Mugabe, though, appears unwilling to surrender much of the power he has wielded since independence from Britain in 1980.
MAJOR SPEECH
In his first major speech since negotiations began, Tsvangirai said at a party rally on Sunday that Mugabe should accept a ceremonial presidency or “let’s go for elections under international supervision and see who will carry the day.”
“We should not be pushed into a deal,” Tsvangirai said. “We would rather have no deal than get a bad deal.”
Mugabe has threatened in recent days to name a Cabinet without input from Tsvangirai. The opposition says that would undermine the talks.
‘BIGGEST PROBLEM’
Tsvangirai, the leader of Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC, has objected to Mbeki’s mediation in the past, calling the South African president biased toward Mugabe and asking that he be replaced.
On Sunday, Tsvangirai said: “The biggest problem we have is there are people who are putting pressure on the MDC, not [on] Mugabe.”
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