"Tsvangirai Just A Minister" - President's Office

Today, Morgan Tsvangirai's is accusedof trying to usurp the powers of the president and the cabinet. He is also publicly accused today of trying "smuggle into government things he failed to have factored into the GPA and is labelled "just a minister" by the Herald source, almost certainly a person in the President's office. Government sources are attributing the coments to George Charamba, who has been ordered by Mugabe to, publicly at least, pretend to show respect towards Tsvangirai.

Robert "The Solution" Mugabe's office has publicly labelled Prime Minister Tsvangirai "just a minister."

"He is the most senior minister, but a just minister all the same," says an "anonymous source" in the president's office on the front page of the State newspaper today.

The article accuses the Prime Minister of "trying to smuggle into government things they failed to have factored into the GPA"

Tsvangirai has apparently written a memo to The Solution seeking to have ministers report to him instead of to Mugabe, who is Head of State and Government, a position that makes Tsvangirai just another minister, despite the title he holds.

In a barely veiled threat to the continued existence of the GPA and this Inclusive Government, the source, almost certainly from the president's office, says, "It is fatal to raise issues that are outside the Constitution."

It is also instructive to note that, in the last month or so, the tone of the State Television news has changed noticeably and every time they report on Mugabe, they refer to him without fail as "Head of State and Government", a move designed to basically rub Tsvangirai's nose in it.

Tsvangirai shows today that these comments on ZTV have gotten to him, because in his memo to Mugabe, he says "it is wrong to refer to Mugabe as Head of State and Government" and that he should simply be called "President" or "His Excellency The President".

The move by Tsvangirai is a very clear acknowledgement by him that he holds no power, despite what some of his clueless apologists have been trying to tell us on the internet and in conversations.

Tsvangirai, by doing this, is telling the world that he now realises the mistake in signing the GPA and that he holds no executive power. In the same memo he sent to Mugabe, it is clear to anyone with even half a brain that he is acknowledging that, according to the laws and rules as they stand now, Cabinet ministers do not report to him.

Talk such as what we got from his Deputy, Thokozani Khupe, last month, about Mugabe and Tsvangirai being "on par" with each other is now exposed by none other than Tsvangirai himself, as false as delusional as he seeks to at least get some semblance of executive authority.

It is true, as I have always said and as other commentators have pointed out, that the MDC-T now realises it made huge mistakes in signing a GPA whose implications they gave little thought to and seemed not to understand. By the time American ambassador McGee pointed it out to Tsvangirai, the deal had already been signed and SADC was insisting that the signatories should honour their signatures or lose all credibility.

They are now trying to correct this, while singing the praises of Mugabe, a position that basically makes their efforts redundant.

The MDC-T has now also acknowledged through its actions that the issue about SADC being a guarantor of the Inclusive Government is a meaningless one, just like Chamisa is alleged to be in yesterday's Herald.

SADC has no intention of stepping into the fray in Zimbabwe. The MDC-T is on its own, cut loose to deal with Mugabe and ZANU PF.

They have written to SADC about the "outstanding issues" but the communication has been ignored, with the Chairman of the Organ on Defence and Politics, King Mswati of Swaziland, coming to Zimbabwe to sing the praises of one of those outstanding issues, Gideon Gono.