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(TALKZIMBABWE) Tsvangirai defies Khupe, MDC-T statement

Tsvangirai defies Khupe, MDC-T statement
Floyd Nkomo
Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:46:00 +0000

PM Tsvangirai arrives at Harare airport on Monday where he was met by Cabinet ministers including Public Works Minister Theresa Makone (pictured above). He was returning from a state visit to the EU and US. Also arriving on the same flight was Deputy President Joice Mujuru who was returning from a UN Summit on the global economic and financial crisis.

PRIME MINISTER Morgan Tsvangirai has defied a statement made by his party's vice-president and Deputy Prime Minister that the inclusive Government was in danger of collapsing.

DPM Khupe, who led a boycott of a rescheduled Cabinet meeting yesterday had indicated that the power-shraing deal was threatened by what she called President Mugabe's "unilateralism, disrespect, contempt and refusal to recognise the reality and the letter of the global political agreement".

PM Tsvangirai refuted claims that President Mugabe was blocking reform.

He was speaking to reporters a day after returning from a state visit to the EU and US.

"There are frustrations," Tsvangirai said of the comments Monday from his deputy, Thokozani Khupe, about disengaging. But "certainly I can assure you there's no pulling out of this agreement. There's no reason the (inclusive) Government is going to collapse."

Khupe had made a hullabaloo of President Mugabe's decision to reschedule the weekly Cabinet meeting from Tuesday to Monday because he was going to be out of town for an African Union summit in Libya.

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Vice-President Joice Mujuru (R) arrives at Harare airport on Monday where she was met by Cabinet ministers including ICT Minister Nelson Chamisa (L) and Public Works Minister Theresa Makone (pictured above). She was returning from a UN Summit on the global economic and financial crisis.

Under the Global Political Agreement, President Mugabe is the Head of State and Government and chairs Cabinet. PM Tsvangirai chairs the Council of Ministers and deputises the president in Cabinet.

PM Tsvangirai said Tuesday he and President Mugabe would discuss sticking points in the inclusive Government when the president returns from the AU summit.

Tsvangirai also defied a call by his party calling on the neighboring countries in the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) to step in to help sort out remaining issues.

He said that Zimbabwe's leaders were capable of finding a lasting solution on the remaining issues.

"We can do this on our own," Tsvangirai said. "We don't even need Sadc at this point."

Labels: MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, THOKOZANE KHUPE

posted by MrK @ 3:32 PM