MDC says cabinet talks deadlocked, ZANU PF wants “all key ministries”
By Violet Gonda
18 September 2008

Zimbabweans are once again having to wait for details of the new government, this time the cause of the delay is the composition of the new cabinet. The political leaders Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai met on Thursday morning to decide who controls which of the 31 ministries up for grabs, but MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa said the issue of the “key ministries is really becoming quite problematic.”

He told Newsreel: "The meeting was unfortunately inconclusive because the issues that were supposed to be dealt with have since been referred to the negotiating teams.” The negotiation team is comprised of members from ZANU PF and the 2 MDC formations.

He said ZANU PF wanted “to take all the key ministries, literally rendering the government exclusive… and we are not going to countenance that approach.”

According to the MDC spokesperson, ZANU PF is insisting on having the Defence, Information, Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Agriculture, Justice, Mines, Higher Education, Youth and Women ministries.

The political rivals signed a power sharing agreement on Monday giving executive authority to both Mugabe and Tsvangirai. Out of the 31 ministries ZANU PF was allocated 15, Tsvangirai-MDC 13, with three for the Mutambara-MDC.

Chamisa says his party has gone into the deal with equal powers since they control the local government and legislature, and ZANU PF will not have their way. He said: “The devil is always in the detail, and the detail comes in the allocation of ministries.”

An independent observer commented: “What part of ‘sharing’ does ZANU PF not understand?”