Zimbabwe's main opposition Movement for Democratic Change(MDC) is denying media speculation that it has reached a power-sharing agreementwith President Robert Mugabe's ruling party. The opposition party says the latesttalks on power sharing with the ruling ZANU-PF that resumed last Friday inSouth Africa did not reach an agreement. TheMDC blames the ruling ZANU-PF party for speculating on reaching a power sharingdeal.
Thepeace talks are, however expected to continue despite a deadlock on the powersharing deal. Nelson Chamisa is the spokesman for Zimbabwe's main oppositionMDC. From the capital, Harare he tells reporter Peter Clottey that although theparty is committed to the talks, its stance on the power sharing deal remainsthe same.
"Thereason why they (the MDC negotiating team) went to South Africa was to havebilateral consultations with the South African team as instructed by PresidentMbeki. At no time did we have a face-to-face meeting with the negotiators ofZANU-PF. It was basically to try and articulate our position and to check ifthere has been any change of circumstances or facts on the ground vis-à-vis thewhole dialogue process. But as it is there hasn't been any change," Chamisanoted.
Hesaid the main bone of contention has been the issue of power sharing.
"Weare deadlocked on key issues around the issue of power. We have said it isunheard of to have a prime minister without powers to execute the business ofgovernment and that was the case, they (ZANU-PF- didn't want Mr. Tsvangirai asprime minister to have powers, to chair cabinet to have power to disciplinepeople who do not perform in cabinet. And we have had a situation where Mr.Mugabe has had bable authoritarian powers compared to Mr. Tsvangirai's flatfile of responsibilities. So, that remains the bone of contention," he said.
Chamisadenied the MDC is power hungry and entrenched in its position during thestalled power sharing talks.
"Theobjective for us to participate in this negotiation process has been to achievethree major things. The first one was to have a transitional dispensation andof course under the circumstance to have a referendum and to have a peopledriven constitution. The second item was then to have a situation whereby we aprogram of national healing and restorative justice across the whole country.And the third issue has to do with the professionalization of the institutionsof the state that has been so partisan and biased in a bludgeoned fashion. Andthose three things are only possible if we have sufficient and power andleverage to execute those problems," Chamisa pointed out.
Hesaid President Mugabe's ruling party has a history of not being totallycommitted to living up to its side of bargains in negotiations.
"Weare dealing with ZANU-PF. ZANU-PF has a legacy of manipulating competitors ormanipulating partners," he said.
Chamisasaid although the opposition MDC won the last presidential election, it isstill committed to finding salting solution to the country's crisis.
"Youknow that we won the election on the 29 of March. Ideally, and naturally, thepresident is supposed to be Mr. Tsvangirai, but we have said we are prepared inthe spirit of magnanimity to climb down so that we have dialogue with Mr.Mugabe who lost election so, that we have some soft landing of the crisis? andwe are motivated by our desire to respond to the issues affecting Zimbabweans,the issue of food, the issue of the humanitarian challenges people arecurrently encountering. We wanted to respond to them and this is why we arestill in the dialogue," Chamisa pointed out.
Thepower-sharing negotiations reportedly stalled over how executive power shouldbe shared by President Mugabe and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who refused tosign an agreement that would have made him prime minister two weeks ago.Tsvangirai has protested against the proposed deal, saying it did not give himenough executive powers in government.