Mugabe asks Tsvangirai to take up PM post
BINDURA, Zimbabwe (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe announced on Friday he had invited rival Morgan Tsvangirai to be sworn-in as prime minister in a shared government, but expressed doubt whether he would accept.
The United States, which has called on Mugabe to step down, said it suspected the offer was a ruse.
Opposition leader Tsvangirai threatened to ask for a suspension of power-sharing talks if the government did not stop what he called the persecution of political opponents.
The deadlock between Mugabe and Tsvangirai has held up any chance of ending the spiralling crisis in the southern African country, where a spreading cholera epidemic has killed more than 1,100 people and food and fuel are in short supply.
Mugabe told supporters he had sent letters to Tsvangirai inviting him to be sworn in as prime minister but expressed doubt that a breakthrough could be reached.
"I have sent letters so that they can come and I can swear (in) and appoint them. We have not reached a stage where we can say with a degree of certainty that they want to be part of this," Mugabe said.
But Tsvangirai's opposition Movement for Democratic Change said that it had not received any letters.
Tsvangirai has long accused Mugabe of trying to sideline the opposition to a minor role in a coalition government. Deadlock on implementing their September power-sharing agreement has centred on control of key cabinet posts.
THREAT
The opposition leader said on Friday negotiations were endangered by what he called a wave of abductions of MDC supporters. The MDC blames Mugabe's ZANU-PF party.
"If these abductions do not cease immediately, and if all the abductees are not released or charged in a court of law by January 1, 2009, I will be asking the MDC's National Council to pass a resolution to suspend all negotiations and contact with ZANU-PF," Tsvangirai said in a news conference in Gaborone.
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said he suspected Mugabe's offer to swear in Tsvangirai as prime minister was a ruse.
"Based on history, one would take such a proposal with ... a grain of salt," he told reporters.
Zimbabwe's state media have raised the possibility that early elections could be held if the power-sharing deal fails. ZANU-PF lost its parliamentary majority in a March election for the first time since independence in 1980.
Tsvangirai also defeated Mugabe in a presidential ballot but without an absolute majority. He pulled out of the run-off in June, saying scores of his supporters had been killed.
His threat to suspend talks came amid growing international concerns over the spread of a cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe and renewed calls from Western countries and some African leaders for Mugabe, 84, to step down.
The United Nations said the death toll from cholera had risen to 1,123 and that 20,896 people had been infected with the easily preventable and treatable disease as of Thursday.
The government has accused former colonial power Britain and the United States of trying to exploit the cholera epidemic to end Mugabe's 28-year rule. Botswana's foreign minister and Kenya's prime minister are among those in Africa who have called for military intervention. Most African leaders favour dialogue.
"I do not know of any African country that is brave enough to do that," the state-run Herald newspaper quoted Mugabe as saying in a meeting on Thursday with the ZANU-PF central committee.
(Additional reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe)