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Johannesburg — A FIGHT is looming between Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai over the fate of Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono, who is fighting a fierce bid by the finance minister to dump him.
Renewed clashes between Mugabe and Tsvangirai this week pose an added threat to the shaky inclusive government, which recently completed its first 100 days in office with little to show. Mugabe is said to have mobilised his closest allies, politicians and army commanders to resist the efforts of Tsvangirai and his Finance Minister Tendai Biti to remove Gono.
The move would intensify the battle for the control of the central bank, which has with the appointment of attorney-general Johannes Tomana, been referred to Southern African Development Community (Sadc ) for mediation.
Sadc is guarantor of the pact between Mugabe's Zanu (PF) and two factions of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The Gono-Tomana dispute is likely to be one of the issues SA's President Jacob Zuma would have deal with when he starts tackling regional matters.
Zuma might also deal with continued political repression in Zimbabwe manifested in arrests of politicians, civic activists, lawyers and journalists. There are also new land invasions in Zimbabwe, persistent property rights violations, human rights abuses and a brewing political conflict over constitutional reform.
The MDC more than a week ago referred a series of outstanding political issues to Sadc for mediation, but some of them were resolved last week. Those cleared included the appointment of senior government officials, including permanent secretaries, provincial governors and ambassadors, and the swearing-in of deputy Agriculture Minister Roy Bennett.
A date for the swearing-in of Bennett and governors is yet to be announced.
The MDC insists the appointments of Tomana and Gono were unprocedural as they violated their political agreement. Tsvangirai, Biti and their colleagues within the MDC want Gono to go because they say he fuelled the country's economic meltdown through printing money and stoking inflation which rose to billion rate levels.
However, Gono wrote a long letter to Tsvangirai last week, claiming Biti was victimising him because he had tried to investigate him over alleged corruption involving money laundering.
Gono said Tsvangirai had to mediate in the escalating dispute between him and Biti.
Mugabe publicly entered the fray on Monday, warning Tsvangirai and his officials that Gono was going nowhere. "Within the country, in the inclusive government, there are those who don't want him, but I say he will not go," Mugabe said.
"Those in Britain and elsewhere are not happy that he is where he is, still at the top of the Reserve Bank." Mugabe claimed Gono was being targeted for supporting him and sustaining his rule. Gono, a close Mugabe ally and banker, stands accused by his critics of printing money partly to fund Mugabe's rule under which the country collapsed into the worst economy in the world outside a war zone.
Western donors have specified Gono's removal as one of their conditions for funding Zimbabwe's 10bn economic recovery plan. Donors are also insisting on political and economic reforms before they could give substantial economic aid.
So far Zimbabwe has been able to secure only about 1bn from donors, mainly as humanitarian assistance. A multidonor trust fund, which involves the World Bank, United Nations Development Programme and African Development Bank, has been set up to mobilise resources for the new government.
Mugabe and his ministers have been fighting about this initiative, fearing that it could used to seize power from them from within.
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Zungairwa;
We will have to wait and see to the "downfall" of the most hated "dictator" on earth, the man you have, for years now, prayed for his death, the man you would be happy to have his head on your next dinner table and the man who has survived all your machinations and those of the CIA and MI6.
What you do not know is that this man is the most loved person on the African continent. He is known and loved by the povo in the jungle of Kivu and Kisangani, in the shanty areas of Kenya, Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi, South Africa and any place you can chose. Who else does one want to get support from than the povo? You take him to any place and he will be cheered and lifted high up in the sky unlike you who will be stoned to death.
Incidentally, the man you hate that much is now loved by the majority of people in MDC. They are daily expressing their regret at not knowing the man they thought was a dictator and yet he is the most democratic leader in the world.
What I am telling you was confirmed by three ministers and many officials from the MDC that I have talked to over the past three weeks. The fact that they did not know who they were talking to made them express themselves freely. I am happy, personally, that those discussions have helped me to see MDC in a different light.
The brothers in MDC have repented, they have decided to abandon the selling out root and they are not worried whether imperialists cease funding their party or not. What they want now is to work for Zimbabweans and not against them as was the case in the past. They have now seen the importance of "Total Independence" and not only physical but mental, cultural, social and economic independence. The brothers and sisters in MDC now see the GNU as the only way to disentangle themselves from the yoke of imperialism. They will immediately tell you that "The PGA is here to stay".
I said all this just to show you that the "downfall" you are talking about will remain a pipe dream or is just a pigment of your own imagination because the people who should have been working for President Mugabes downfall are the ones who are his ardent supporters.
Dream on.
By the way the expression is 'it's a figment of your imagination' not 'it's a pigment of your imagination'; or is your racism now so entrenched that you meant what you said?
Katz,
What is most important is that you know and have understood what I wanted to say. So the fact remains that it only exists in your minds which are rotten.
Tackie is totally dillusional so much now that he should be called Trainer. Tackie/ trainer, the Tokolosh Leader of the Macheke Coven.
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