A top aide to Zimbabwe‘s prime minister, whose pending trial led to a fracture in the coalition government, said after he was freed on bail that judges are starting to stand “behind the rule of law.”

Citing the “persecution” of Roy Bennett, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai on Friday abandoned – at least temporarily – shared rule with President Robert Mugabe, marking a setback to the country’s struggle to emerge from political gridlock, economic collapse and international isolation and sanctions.

Tsvangirai told reporters his party members would not attend Cabinet meetings or engage in other executive work with Mugabe’s party.

“Until confidence has been restored we can’t continue to pretend that everything is well,” Tsvangirai said, referring to a trial scheduled to begin Monday against Bennett, the prime minister’s nominee for deputy agriculture minister who is charged with weapons violations. The charges are linked to long-discredited allegations that Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change plotted Mugabe’s violent overthrow.

Bennett was freed late Friday from jail in Mutare, 170 miles (270 kilometres) east of the capital. He told AP Television News that the power-sharing arrangement that Mugabe and his erstwhile rival Tsvangirai entered into in February is unreliable. The unity government was formed after two violence-plagued elections left the country at a political standstill and in economic ruin.

But Bennett said there have also been positive signs. Recently the Supreme Court threw out charges against nine human rights activists, saying they had been tortured in prison. And Bennett’s lawyers persuaded a Harare High Court judge on Friday to restore his bail.

“I think within the judicial system you have independent judges, who in their own right are independent people with the background and credibility and history, and I think they are coming to the fore and standing behind the rule of law,” Bennett told APTN in a friend’s home.

Tsvangirai told a news conference in Harare that his move did not spell the collapse of the government.

“We are not really pulling out officially,” he said, but making clear his party members would not attend Cabinet meetings or engage in other executive work with Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party. The MDC will continue parliament activities.

U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Friday that Washington understood “the frustration” of Tsvangirai’s party, and called on Mugabe to make the power-sharing agreement work.

“This is an agreement that Mr. Mugabe himself signed, and he hasn’t taken the concrete steps to show a commitment to democratic reform and opening up his political system,” Kelly said.

Friday’s move demonstrates deep unhappiness within the MDC with the coalition. But Tsvangirai has repeatedly said he sees the coalition as the only way to ensure Zimbabwe‘s future.

The indifferent reaction from Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party underlined tensions within the coalition.

“If MDC wants to disengage… we don’t have a problem with that,” said Ephraim Masawi, a ZANU-PF spokesman. “We were having problems with MDC, working together. We have been trying but it was not easy.”

Zimbabwe‘s neighbours had urged Mugabe, who has held power since independence in 1980, to form the partnership with Tsvangirai, a former labor leader. In forming their coalition, the longtime opponents pledged to work together to turn around the country’s economic and political collapse.

Tsvangirai has condemned continuing human rights violations. Mugabe has demanded that Tsvangirai do more to get international sanctions lifted and foreign aid and investment restored.

Tsvangirai had nominated Bennett as deputy agriculture minister in the coalition. Bennett was arrested the day the Cabinet was sworn in in February. He denies the charges against him. Bennett had been free on bail since March, but that was revoked earlier this week.

“Roy Bennett is not being prosecuted, he is being persecuted,” Tsvangirai said.

The coalition is Mugabe’s only hope for taking Zimbabwe out of international isolation, and it has brought Tsvangirai closer to power than any election.

Foreign governments and multilateral donors have expressed support for Tsvangirai, warmly welcoming him on a recent international tour. But concerns persist about propping up Mugabe, accused of trampling on democracy and ruining a once prosperous economy. Even with Tsvangirai in the government, donors prefer not to give money directly to Zimbabwe‘s treasury, instead working through independent aid groups.

(Source)