Opposition leaders in Zimbabwe say they will launch a new
attempt this week to put pressure on the president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, and his
ruling Zanu-PF party to share power.
Nelson Chamisa, the leader of the Movement for Democratic
Change, the main opposition party in the former British colony, said a rally on
Thursday in Harare would call for a “transitional authority” to “move the
country forward”.
Chamisa reiterated his rejection of the results in
presidential polls held four months ago. Mnangagwa was declared winner of the
vote, the first after the ousting of Robert Mugabe in a military takeover last
year.
“We need a collective approach ... the people voted and
that has to be respected,” Chamisa told the Guardian.
Mugabe, 94, has been receiving medical treatment in
Singapore for the last two months. He is unable to walk because of ill health
and old age, Mnangagwa said on Saturday.
“He is now old. Of course, he now is unable to walk but
whatever he asks for we will provide,” Mnangagwa told hundreds of supporters in
Mugabe’s home area of Zvimba, about 60 miles (100km) west of the capital,
Harare.
“We are looking after him. He is the founding father of the
nation of Zimbabwe. He is our founding father of free Zimbabwe.”
Mugabe, who took power in 1980, is expected to return to the
country this week.
Mnangagwa has made strenuous attempts to convince the
international community that Zanu-PF has forgone the repression and brutality
that characterised its 38 years in power. He has vowed to revive Zimbabwe’s
ailing economy by attracting much needed foreign direct investment.
Although the elections in July were not marred by the type
of systematic violence experienced under Mugabe, alleged irregularities during
the count and violent repression following the vote have resulted in lukewarm
support for Mnangagwa and the ruling Zanu-PF party from major international
powers.
The shooting by soldiers of six unarmed civilians in Harare
during opposition protests also made endorsement of the new government
difficult, officials privately admit.
To deflect some of the criticism, Mnangagwa set up an
inquiry commission into the killings headed by the former South African
president Kgalema Motlanthe.
Senior military commanders have told the inquiry their men
were not responsible for the killings, despite widely published photographs and
video footage showing Zimbabwean army soldiers firing on people in Harare’s
streets.
Brig Gen Anselem Sanyatwe, the commander of the elite
presidential guard, told a hearing in Harare of the special inquiry investigating
the killings that “if any gunshot wounds were sustained by the victims, it was
not from my men”.
Officials have suggested that unidentified opposition
activists were responsible for the deaths and have alleged that Chamisa incited
violence. The MDC leader, 40, dismissed the accusation as “bizarre”.
Chamisa has been invited to appear before the inquiry but
said he was concerned about its impartiality and was still to take a decision.
“It would frankly be embarrassing for me to come to answer
wild assertions made by a member of the state, not a court of law, not an
ordinary person … How do you appear before a panel appointed by a political
competitor?” Chamisa said. A response from the inquiry to a letter Chamisa sent
outlining his principal concerns had been unsatisfactory, he said.
Zimbabwe faces a deepening economic crisis as hopes fade of
a new wave of international investment and aid. Fuel has run short and prices
are soaring. Despite the hardship, mobilisation for opposition protests has
remained at relatively low levels. Guardian
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