Zimbabwe Unity Government In Crisis
The New York Times reports:
JOHANNESBURG — To show how the party led by President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe uses brute force against its opponents, Elton Mangoma, a cabinet minister in the country’s troubled power-sharing government, rolled up a pant leg during a recent interview at his home to reveal scars from a 2007 police beating that he said shattered his kneecap.
“If South Africa, the African Unionand the international community fold their arms, then Zimbabwe can descend into chaos,” warned Mr. Mangoma, a leader in the Movement for Democratic Change, or M.D.C., the party that fought Mr. Mugabe’s rule for a decade before regional leaders pressured it into governing with him for the past two years.
On Thursday, the police came again for Mr. Mangoma, the minister of energy and power development, who now stands accused of criminal abuse of office in a deal to procure fuel — charges he denied through his lawyer.
Also on Thursday, Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court — viewed by many as partial to Mr. Mugabe, 87 — invalidated the 2008 election of a speaker of Parliament from the Movement for Democratic Change.
The day’s events provided yet more evidence of Zimbabwe’s rapidly deteriorating political situation.
“The fact of the matter is that Zimbabwe is in a crisis,” Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, said in a statement on Thursday.
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