Biti tipped for finance minister as Zimbabwe awaits new government

Tendai BitiJohannesburg - Zimbabwe's opposition number two, Tendai Biti, will take up a post of government minister later this week, sources with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said Monday, rejecting reports he had decided to boycott the power-sharing deal.

"He's going to be in cabinet. It's going to happen, 100 per cent," a senior official in the party told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

"We were all a bit surprised by this thing (MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai's agreement to join a Mugabe-dominated government) but he's fully behind this now," another party official, who is tipped for a ministerial position in the unity government.

Both sources tipped Biti to become finance minister, the most prominent of the 13 ministries awarded to the MDC in a September power-sharing deal, according to which Mugabe remains president and Tsvangirai becomes prime minister.

Mugabe's Zanu-PF will control of 15 ministries and a breakaway MDC faction led by Arthur Mutambara will have three.

Tsvangirai is scheduled to be sworn in as prime minister on Wednesday. The cabinet is due to be sworn in two days later.

MDC secretary-general Tendai Biti was part of the more hardline faction within the MDC that opposed joining a government that is heavily skewed in Zanu-PF's favour.

The MDC, which won the last parliamentary elections, had previously insisted on a more equitable deal.

In the end, after coming under sustained pressure from other southern African countries, the party voted last week in favour of Tsvangirai's proposal to join the government and try to effect change from within.

Given the ruinous state of Zimbabwe's economy, the finance ministry is seen as a poisoned chalice. A strong candidate will be needed to convince Western powers to abandon their wait-and-see approach to the new government and commit large amounts of aid.

"He would be very well suited," the source tipped for a ministerial post said of the popular Biti.

Analysts say that Zimbabwe's economic turnaround will have to be mostly African-funded - at least in the short-term.

On Sunday, South African President Kgalema Motlanthe, who has been involved in the power-sharing talks, floated the prospect of Zimbabwe ditching its worthless currency for the rand.

"It may be practical for them to enter into an arrangement with our Reserve Bank here and adopt the rand as their currency," Motlanthe said in an interview with state television.

Meanwhile, while Tsvangirai is being sworn in on Wednesday, a group of MDC members and opposition activists that have also been campaigning for democratic change will probably still be languishing in prison.

Despite Tsvangirai insisting last week that around 30 political prisoners, who including leading rights activist Jestina Mukoko, be released before his inauguration, MDC sources said they did not think they would be freed on time. (dpa)

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