Mbeki Arrives And Why Tsvangirai Will Sign

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Thabo Mbeki arrives this morning to try and mediate.

Yesterday, I was at Tsvangirai's rally in Highfields and there must have been about 20 000 people there. Tsvangirai spelt out clearly that he is going to compromise. What he wants is the ministry of home affairs and he said so. This means that Mugabe has basically agreed to hand over Finance to him, so that is no longer in dispute.

One fails to understand Tsvangirai's obsession with Home Affairs. Even if his party gets the post, the Commissioner of the Police will not report to him, since Mugabe's powers to appoint the Head of Police are still intact. So, it will be ZAPU all over again, where Nkomo complained in his biography that, although he was Minister of Home Affairs in the early 80s, he was not informed when his own party officers were arrested. He did not sign the arrest warrants as would have been procedural. So Tsvangirai's people will just sit in the office and look pretty, but they will have no influence or power.
Tsvangirai knows this. The MDC-T right now is working only to get the trappings of power, without the power itself. Mugabe may well capitulate and then ensure that the police and the army and all the other important appointees, remain firmly in his camp. He is a wily fox and recognises this.

For other developments: prices are up this morning across the board before anyone has had sight of the new Z$50 000 note. Bread is Z$10 000 a loaf on the black market. A single egg now costs Z$7 000 and by midday, I will have the new rates for the US dollar. The queues at the bank are breaking records this morning. CABS must be the worst bank in Zimbabwe and that is where all civil servants bank, so I was able to see soldiers being humiliated this morning by fresh-faced CABS employees as they waited in the queue.

Shops are still refusing any form of payment other than cash in Zim dollars or US dollars.

There will be a clearer picture as the day progresses, so keep checking this blog


Cheers until later in the day.

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