Tsvangirai and Mutambara join forces

By Tererai Karimakwenda
April 16, 2008

Opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, leaders of the two MDC formations, held a press conference in South Africa on Monday where they announced that they would be joining forces to ensure the MDC holds the majority in parliament. This would effectively make ZANU-PF the opposition in parliament for the first time in their history.

Speaking at the press conference in Johannesburg, Tsvangirai said: "Mugabe should concede that he cannot be president without controlling the parliament." The MDC has been split since 2005 over a dispute regarding the Senate, but this agreement to support each other in parliament now gives the opposition parties power over ZANU-PF and Robert Mugabe.

The news came after the Zimbabwe Election Commission confirmed that after the recount the opposition had retained the majority of parliamentary seats.
The ZEC has been recounting ballots in 23 constituencies that were disputed by ZANU-PF. Recounts in 18 of the 23 constituencies confirmed that the MDC had won all 18 seats. ZANU-PF needed to reverse results in 9 of them in order to take back majority status.

The partial recount of the disputed presidential election has been completed and verification of the results by the candidates will start on Tuesday, an election official said on Monday.
The verification of results by presidential candidates could take up to a week, electoral officials have said.