There is still no information as to when the provincial governors and Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Roy Bennett, are going to be sworn into office. Last week Gorden Moyo, the Minister of State in the Prime Minister's office, said that according to the provisions, the governors and Bennett are supposed to be in office with effect from September 1st.

He said the delay is caused by Robert Mugabe, since the implementation is in the hands of the presidency as he is the one responsible for the swearing-in of the government officials.

On the 15th September, a year will have gone by since the Global Political Agreement was signed by the rival political parties, but there are still no real democratic reforms. The media is still tightly controlled by ZANU PF, who are also accused of seriously backtracking on the process of creating a new constitution, while the bickering over the appointments of the Attorney General and Central Bank governor continues.

Critics widely believe the so-called constitution making process is simply a side-show and that the MDC is running the risk of legitimising a despotic regime that continues to maintain a tight grip on power. Political analyst Professor John Makumbe says the unity government has been 'limping' along from the very beginning and that it is very unfortunate that there are so many outstanding issues, a year after the signing of the GPA. He believes ZANU PF is doing this deliberately to force the MDC to pull out. Professor Makumbe said he spoke to the Prime Minister last week who said he was under pressure to pull out - not from his party, but from ZANU PF. "Morgan has said he is positive because he says there is no going back and there is nothing to go back to apart from pain, suffering and hyperinflation," said Makumbe. But the analyst blasted the MDC for not doing enough to put pressure on ZANU PF to honour the provisions of the GPA.

Meanwhile, the MDC-M have appointed former Harare North legislator, Trudy Stevenson, for the position of Zimbabwe's ambassador to Senegal. Stevenson, who is also the party's Secretary for Research and Policy, replaces Siyabonga Malandu Ncube, the MP for Insiza South, who was the party's first nominee. But he declined the post last week.

Trudy joins four other ambassadorial nominees who are undergoing three months diplomatic training in Harare, before their deployment. The other four are from the MDC-T and they are Hebson Makuvise, ambassador-designate to Germany, Jacqueline Zwambila, ambassador-designate to Australia, Hilda Mafudze, ambassador-designate to Sudan and Mabed Ngulani, ambassador-designate to Nigeria.

Unconfirmed reports say the trainee diplomats will only be deployed to their posts next year because the government is broke.