Zimbabwe’s political rivals on Monday signed a power-sharing agreement, bringing an end to 28 years of a monopoly on executive power by President Robert Mugabe.
The deal marked a major power shift, with the ruling ZANU-PF party losing control of the parliament and Cabinet for the first time since independence from Britain in 1980.
Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change and a splinter group led by Arthur Mutambara, formerly of ZANU-PF, together control 109 seats of the 210-seat parliament and 16 members of the 31-member Cabinet.
However, questions remain on how well the arrangement will work, with no final agreement on which party will get which Cabinet posts, nor any final deal on who controls the security forces.
The MDC wants opposition control of finance, the police and the intelligence services but is willing to leave Mugabe in control of the army. A senior ruling party source said ZANU-PF wanted the army and intelligence, but might be willing to hand control of police to Tsvangirai.
Hundreds of supporters of Tsvangirai, the new prime minister designate, danced and cheered outside the hotel where the agreement was signed. They booed loudly when Mugabe’s cavalcade arrived, a display of public derision not seen or tolerated before in Zimbabwe.
Mugabe looked wooden as the parties, including the mediator of the talks, South African President Thabo Mbeki, locked hands after the signing ceremony.
The power-sharing deal follows a prolonged deadlock after elections in March in which Tsvangirai outpolled Mugabe with about 48 percent of the vote compared with about 43 percent for Mugabe, according to official results.
With neither winning outright, a presidential runoff was held on June 27, but Tsvangirai pulled out because of state-sponsored violence against his supporters. Although the ruling party claimed Mugabe won by a landslide, the result was condemned as undemocratic by African observers and the international community.
“This is my freedom day,” said Maxwell Maurukira, 38, an opposition activist who said he was severely beaten at various times for his political beliefs. Two of his best friends, also MDC activists, were killed by ZANU-PF thugs in the election violence, he said.
After signing the deal, Tsvangirai said both ZANU-PF, the party of liberation, and the MDC, the “party of the people” must work together, with the international community’s support.
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“I have signed this agreement because of my belief in the people of Zimbabwe runs deeper than the scars that I bear from this struggle,” said Tsvangirai.