Word: mdc
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...March 28 elections, in which it finished second. And Mugabe appeared to move closer to getting his way when Zimbabwe's Southern African neighbors two weeks ago chose not to pressure the 84-year-old President over his intransigence, but instead urged the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to accept a greatly diluted share of government. Still, as limited as its leverage may be, the opposition has one key factor working in its favor: the collapse of Zimbabwe's economy and the resulting humanitarian crisis, which Mugabe's ruling party will be unable to address without international help...
...Zimbabwe's neighbors, grouped as the Southern African Development Community (SADC), were called in to mediate after Mugabe's Zanu-PF Party and the MDC failed to agree on how to allocate the 31 Cabinet posts in a prospective unity government. The ruling party insists on retaining control over the police, army and intelligence apparatuses, which have been the bedrock of its control. But the MDC expected to be given authority over the Ministry of Home Affairs, which controls the police force, and it warned last Friday that it would stay out of any new government in which it were...
...Zanu-PF would be quite happy to govern without the participation of an opposition party against which it has repeatedly unleashed systemic violence, except for the fact that only with the MDC on board will Zimbabwe be able to attract the international aid and investment desperately needed to avoid social and economic collapse. Mugabe's party is widely seen internationally as having stolen the election, and international donors and investors are unlikely to do anything that might be seen as propping up his regime. And the social and economic pressure on Mugabe is clearly mounting. (See pictures of Robert Mugabe...
...fact that Zanu-PF needs the MDC's support to stay in power creates a dilemma for the opposition, which risks diluting its own popular legitimacy by joining a government over whose decisions it would have limited influence. "[The MDC has] the choice between the devil and the dark sea," says Elinor Sisulu, a Zimbabwean analyst and human rights activist. "Already people are saying that Zimbabwe is in this mess because these politicians are bickering over a Cabinet post...
...chairing the Council of Ministers. The two would split control over the government’s key ministries. Most significantly, Mugabe and his Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) would retain control of the army and national defense, while Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) would be in charge of daily operations and home affairs. Tsvangirai considers the latter cabinet essential given its control of the police, who were tools for Mugabe’s suppression of Tsvangirai supporters in the weeks before the presidential runoff. They were so violent that Tsvangirai was forced...