Mutambara mulls ‘reshuffle’ but faces problems

February 15, 2011

Africa.World 247.net

February 15, 2011

A WEEK after being expelled by his party, Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara has reportedly hatched a plan to kick three ministers who engineered his ouster out of government.

In its evening bulletins on Monday, the state-run Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation said Mutambara was “mulling a cabinet reshuffle which is likely to affect Professor Welshman Ncube, Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga and David Coltart, if it sails through”.

But senior government sources said Mutambara’s move was unlikely to gain traction with President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai who are both keen to move on from recent attempts to throw Mutambara out of government by the MDC.

Mugabe was instrumental in blocking Mutambara’s ouster from government after telling Ncube, the new MDC leader, that he would not swear him in as Deputy Prime Minister.

“Mutambara can try but he will find Mugabe and Tsvangirai lack appetite, as they did in his case, in upsetting the coalition government’s operations,” said one official.

Ncube is currently the Industry and International Trade Minister; Coltart the Education, Sport and Culture Minister and Misihairabwi-Mushonga the Minister for Regional Integration and International Cooperation.

Citing unnamed legal experts, the ZBC said “Mutambara has legal grounds to carry out the move considering the fact that the congress which elected Ncube into the MDC presidential post is under a pending legal challenge”.

A dozen disgruntled MDC officials filed a court petition, seeking to annul the decisions of a January 8 and 9 congress which Mutambara attended and addressed after deciding not to challenge Ncube.

But Coltart, the party’s legal affairs secretary, said the court challenge was being used by both the disgruntled members who lost positions and the party’s political opponents to frustrate efforts to sideline Mutambara.

“Courts are also used as a delay mechanism to frustrate political goals,” Coltart said last week after the party’s national council expelled Mutambara and declared him a functionary of President Mugabe’s Zanu PF party.