Power sharing, again.

Morgan Tsvangirai, from The Times

Statement from Morgan Tsvangirai

In a curiously half-hearted way we seem to have got back to power sharing in Zimbabwe. Morgan Tsvangirai will become Prime Minister with executive power. Just 3 days ago the MDC was saying it would not accept the SADC-brokered deal. Is Obama's election and the US change of tack coincidental?

SADC's POWER-SHARE TIMELINE

5 Feb: Zimbabwe to pass power-sharing constitutional amendment

11 Feb: PM-designate Tsvangirai and his deputies to be sworn in

13 Feb: Remaining ministers and their deputies to take office

Whether Mugabe will stay is moot. Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade said he had offered him asylum.

"If he leaves power he will not go to Europe," Wade said in a debate on Africa at the World Economic Forum in Davos, "so I told him: 'Come to Senegal'."

"My friend Mugabe does not want to make concessions, we are at a dead end, he can no longer govern the country alone," added the Senegal leader, current president of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.

Wade said Mugabe had to be "advised to say clearly what path he will take to leave power" and be guaranteed that "if he leaves his country he will not be chased."

This doesn't fit exactly with the earlier statements about power sharing - who will be President if Tsvangirai is PM?

Botswana doesn't seem happy with the arrangements which will leave considerable power in ZANU hands. The critical details - who controls the security forces, whop gets the poisoned chalice of finance - have still to be announced.

And Western Aid is unlikely to appear if Mugabe still holds power - though I have no idea how far down the ZUNU-PF hierarchy this attitude would persist - so, if anyone, South Africa will have to pick up the initial tab. With cholera ignoring national boundaries, and Zimbabwean refugees generating internal unhappiness, it would be in their self-interest to do so.

Once again I find myself hoping all will be well, but without much confidence.

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