Zimbabwe Power-Sharing (And the Kenyan Experience with Political Deals)

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara shook hands over a landmark power-sharing agreement before half-a-dozen African heads of state and several thousand supporters in Harare. After three decades of undisputed rule, the accord calls for Mr. Mugabe's ZANU-PF party to share power with the opposition.

Under the accord, Mr. Mugabe is to continue as head-of-state and preside over cabinet meetings. Mr. Tsvangirai, who heads the largest faction of the Movement for Democratic Change, is to assume the newly created post of prime minister and chair the newly created Council of Ministers.

A smaller opposition (MDC) faction led by Arthur Mutambara, is to receive three ministries and Mutambara is to assume one of two newly created positions of deputy prime minister.

The president's party is to receive 15 ministerial portfolios, while Mr. Tsvangirai's group is to receive 13 ministries and the Mutambara faction is to receive three cabinet posts.

You can read more in a report by VOA’s Scott Bobb.

What interests me is whether Zimbabwe and those observing the situation there can learn anything from Kenya’s experience earlier this year in forging a power-sharing deal.

That deal, too, won international praise. President Mwai Kibaki appeared to have stolen an election, like Mugabe. But he OK’ed the creation of a Prime Minister position for opposition rival Raila Odinga.

Moreover, consider this. As the Washington Post reported:

“Kibaki and Odinga have rewarded supporters with high-salary positions as ministers and assistant ministers, resulting in a 94-member Cabinet that is the biggest and most expensive in Kenyan history. Parliament members, the highest paid on the continent, were sworn in and soon got down to the business of trying to resist an attempt to tax their pay of $120,000 a year.”

Question: was Kenya’s opposition “bought”? And has Zimbabwe’s opposition “sold out”?

What do you think?