World Aug. 29, 2008 - 03:35AM JST ( 1 )

HARARE —

President Robert Mugabe’s regime insisted Thursday it will form a new government alone as an outraged opposition planned to petition mediator Thabo Mbeki to save Zimbabwe’s power-sharing talks from an “act of insanity.”

“Nothing is going to stop us from forming a new government. We need to move forward, we need to make sure that Zimbabwe regains its status, we need to work on the economy. People are suffering,” Mugabe’s junior information minister Bright Matonga told South Africa’s state broadcaster SABC.

Matonga was responding to opposition claims that Mugabe would be violating a recent agreement between his ruling ZANU-PF party and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), as well as jeopardizing the delicately-poised negotiations if he unilaterally formed a government.

“That is the mandate that he (Mugabe) was given by the SADC (Southern African Development Community regional bloc) and he is not going to stop forming that new cabinet. The MDC are not serious at all,” said Matonga.

But a senior SADC official, in a thinly veiled swipe at Mugabe, urged all parties to the talks to respect commitments to negotiate a unity government.

Tanki Mothae said the parties had agreed at the August 19 SADC summit “that all Zimbabwe stakeholders should go and sit and finalize all outstanding issues, which will pave the way for establishing a stable and peaceful government.”

“All parties concerned must abide by all the agreements,” said Mothae, a retired army colonel who heads the SADC Organ on Politics, Defense and Security.

Speaking earlier, MDC deputy leader Tendai Biti warned Mugabe’s move would scupper the talks.

“You will be killing the talks. Once you form a government, forget about talks. It is a disaster and an act of insanity to think that Mugabe can go it alone,” Biti said.

“Once he does that (forms a new government), then he has put a final nail on this dialogue…So what in fact you are doing is you are making people suffer, and therefore declaring a war on the people,” he said.

The talks on creating a unity government to end a ruinous political crisis have been stalled for a little over two weeks.

Biti said the MDC would write a letter of protest to Mbeki, the South African president who has been mediating the talks from Pretoria.

“Formally, we are going to write a letter to the facilitator about the breaches that have occurred,” to the ground rules for the talks which where thrashed out in a July 21 agreement, said Biti.

Mbeki’s spokesman Mukoni Ratshitanga said he did not “know when the talks will resume” adding that there was no immediate plan for his boss to visit Harare.

The talks are stalled over MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s refusal to accept a power-sharing deal under which Mugabe would retain the right to hire and fire ministers and over how long a transitional government would remain in place.

Takavafira Zhou, a political analyst at Zimbabwe’s Masvingo State University said Mugabe’s threat “may be a strategy to arm-twist the MDC to accept the deal that is on the table.

“The formation of a new government.. sends a message that talks my have collapsed,” he added.

Lovemore Madhuku, a Harare-based constitutional lawyer, said that Mugabe’s intention to form a new government alone “is a clear indication that the talks between the ZANU-PF and the MDC are long dead.”

Wire reports