Talks between Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai have failed to reach an agreement on who will be in the unity cabinet.
A power sharing deal was signed approximately three weeks ago, as a way to resolve a crisis that has been ongoing since the elections over three months ago.
Nelson Chamisa, a spokesperson for Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) expressed grave concern over failure to reach a deal. He described it as  "a threat to people's lives". 
"People are dying," Chamisa said. "The humanitarian response has to be activated and you need a functional government to do that."
Thabo Mbeki, formerly the president of South Africa has said that he will continue to help secure an agreement between the politicians by mediating the discussion. 
In the deal signed three weeks ago it was agreed that Tsvangirai is now the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, acting as the head of the council of ministers. It was also agreed that Mugabe remains the president of Zimbabwe, meaning that he is still the chair of the cabinet. 
The proposed cabinet contains sixteen seats from the MDC, while Mugabe's Zanu-PF has fifteen seats. The MDC also controls the police while Zanu-PF controls the armed forces.
The agreement also requires press freedom in Zimbabwe.

Have an opinion on this story? Share it!
Share this: 






This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.
Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.
Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Zimbabwean unity talks fail