Zimbabwe: Home Affairs Minister in Hiding

SW Radio Africa (London)

Alex Bell

25 March 2011

The MDC’s co-Minister of Home Affairs, Theresa Makone, was forced into hiding on Friday, as the crackdown against Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s party intensifies.

Makone and her MDC party believe she will be the next official to face arrest, along with at least five others. She told the UK’s BBC news that she was in hiding to avoid arrest in what called a “state plot.” She said that she had been told that at least one other MP, as well as the MDC’s nominated Speaker of Parliament Lovemore Moyo, faced imminent arrest.

These threats come as Energy Minister Elton Mangoma was re-arrested on Friday, on undisclosed charges. Last Sunday state media had reported that police were again after Mangoma in connection with the cancellation of a tender for the purchase of electricity equipment. He was first arrested on March 10th and charged with abuse of office, over a fuel purchase from a South African company.

Political analyst Professor John Makumbe said this onslaught against the MDC is a deliberate effort by ZANU PF to “whittle down the numbers the MDC has in Parliament ahead of the election of a new speaker.” The vote was unilaterally postponed this week by ZANU PF’s Clerk of Parliament, Austin Zvoma, after the Supreme Court nullified the MDC-T’s Lovemore Moyo, who had been elected in 2008.

The vote is now set to go ahead next week Tuesday, but Makumbe said that ZANU PF will ensure that the MDC does not have enough numbers to get a majority vote in favour of Moyo’s return to the seat.

Makumbe said this was a critical time for the MDC, who he said “should be exercising some muscle and saying once and for all that they can’t take this anymore.” But he said the party appears disorganised and without a plan.

“This is unfortunately a classic demonstration of how weak the MDC is in the government. They should be mobilising its supporters in the streets and calling for public action against what ZANU PF is blatantly doing,” Makumbe said.

Minister Mangoma’s original arrest earlier this month drew an angry reaction from MDC leader Tsvangirai, who called for new elections and said it was time for a “divorce” in the two-year-old unity government. Tsvangirai has since said that the government was under the control of “dark and sinister forces,” a statement backed up by the MDC’s Priscilla Misihairambwi-Mushonga who said there had been a ‘coup’ in Zimbabwe.

Minister Makone has also said that the Global Political Agreement, which formed the basis of the unity government, had proved to be an “atrocious and useless” arrangement which did not empower anyone other than ZANU PF. She also admitted to NewsDay that she has no control of the police, who have been openly displaying their partisan nature by only arresting MDC supporters and members.

Makone said it was hopeless to expect SADC to resolve the political impasse in Zimbabwe because ZANU PF had all the power in its grip. ZANU PF’s Rugare Gumbo then reacted on Thursday by saying Makone should “make her authority felt in the police force,” and if for any reason she fails to do that, she should leave the post of Home Affairs Minister.

“Makone and (co-minister Kembo) Mohadi are the ones who control the police and she must not start blaming other people on issues they are not linked to. If she cannot control the police, what is she doing there? Why does she waste people’s time? She must leave the post,” said Gumbo.

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