Mugabe defies opposition over government plans

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2008

HARARE (AFP) — 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 jeopardising the delicately-poised negotiations if he unilaterally...