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Zimbabwe leader jeered at parliament opening

Angus Shaw

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe’s opposition heckled and jeered at Robert Mugabe in a rare show of defiance when the president opened parliament last Tuesday with traditional pomp and his familiar denunciations of the West.

Opposition legislators who now control parliament shouted Mugabe’s party “is rotten!” and refused to stand when the president entered. The jeers occasionally drowned out his 30-minute speech, broadcast live on national television. Mugabe had to raise his voice and, looking annoyed, raced through the final lines
The show of defiance in parliament was unheard of in a country where the president’s political opponents are regularly arrested, intimidated and roughed up.

Earlier, Mugabe arrived in an open-topped vintage Rolls Royce escorted by mounted police wearing pith helmets and carrying lances.

Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change won 100 seats in the 210-seat legislature in March elections, wresting control from Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party, which had held a majority since independence in 1980. Mugabe’s party won 99 seats and a splinter opposition faction won 10. An independent who broke away from Mugabe’s party has the remaining seat.

Mugabe opened parliament despite an agreement he signed in July with Tsvangirai that the assembly would not sit unless both men agreed or until a deal to form a power-sharing government was struck. Negotiations, though, have deadlocked over how Tsvangirai and Mugabe would share power in a unity government.

As the political wrangling goes on, the country is mired in a deep crisis with its economy in collapse. Last Tuesday’s tension may be a glimpse into a future of bitter debates and close votes once parliament gets down to work in October.

Tsvangirai beat Mugabe and two other candidates in presidential elections held alongside the legislative balloting, but did not gain the simple majority needed to avoid a runoff. Mugabe held a one-man runoff after allegedly unleashing his soldiers, police and party militants on the opposition, and declared himself victor despite international condemnation.

The opposition blames Zimbabwe’s crisis on Mugabe’s increasingly autocratic rule and economic mismanagement. Mugabe ordered the seizure, at times violent of white-owned commercial farmland, saying it would be turned over to blacks, but in many cases handing farms to cronies, in the process destroying the country’s economic base.

Mugabe has repeatedly blamed his country’s woes on the United States and former colonial power Britain. He returned to that theme last Tuesday, calling Western sanctions illegal.

“Sanctions must go,” he said, to cheers from his supporters. “They cannot last a day longer if we as Zimbabweans speak against them in deafening unison.”

Sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union target individuals and companies linked to Mugabe, and include travel bans and asset freezes. While such targeted sanctions are meant to spare ordinary Zimbabweans already suffering amid their economy’s collapse, officials say they contribute to a climate that discourages foreign investment, loans and aid.

Mugabe also accused Britain and the United States of unleashing “a vicious onslaught” against his country. He said Zimbabwe, once the region’s breadbasket, was importing food from its neighbors, but that prices were increasing.

“Regrettably, we have noticed the hand of our enemies to thwart us,” he said. “Food is the latest weapon in their regime change agenda.”

Only 99 of the opposition’s members were able to take the oath of office last Monday, after one was arrested as he tried to enter parliament. Another opposition legislator was arrested the next day. Some of the opposition members are on a police list of suspects wanted for election-related violence. But opposition spokesman Nelson Chamisa says the arrests are an attempt to subvert the party’s slight majority in parliament.

Lovemore Moyo of the opposition last Monday won the race for speaker of parliament by 110 votes to 98. The ballot was secret, but Moyo apparently got votes from both Mugabe’s party and the splinter faction to win a post that puts him in charge of parliament’s debate and schedule and gives him the power to appoint committee chairmen.

If the opposition continues to win support from the splinter faction, it would have the simple majority needed to block funds for government ministries and projects. But if there was deadlock, Mugabe could dissolve the assembly and rule by decree. And it was unlikely the opposition could summon the two-thirds vote needed to impeach Mugabe.

(Associated Press)

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