Zimbabwe’s new president Emmerson Mnangagwa swore in his
cabinet on Monday, with allies defending him against criticism for giving top
posts to the generals who helped his rise to power.
Sworn in as president on Nov. 24 after 93-year-old Robert Mugabe
quit following a de facto military coup, Mnangagwa has also come under fire for
bringing back several faces from the Mugabe era, including Patrick Chinamasa as
finance minister.
Air Marshall Perrance Shiri, who was handed the sensitive
land portfolio, defended his appointment in remarks to reporters after a simple
ceremony to take oaths of office.
“Who says military people should never be politicians? I‘m a
Zimbabwean so I have every right to participate in government,” he said.
Shiri is feared and loathed by many Zimbabweans as the
former commander of the North Korean-trained ‘5 Brigade’ that played a central
role in ethnic massacres in Matabeleland in 1983 in which an estimated 20,000
people were killed.
Land is a central political issue in the southern African
country, where reforms in the early 2000s led to the violent seizure of
thousands of white-owned farms and hastened an economic collapse.
Another military figure is foreign minister Sibusiso Moyo,
whom most Zimbabweans remember as the khaki-clad general who went on state
television in the early hours of Nov. 15 to announce the military takeover.
He declined to discuss the cabinet with Reuters, saying he
had yet to get into his new office.
Assembling a cabinet has not been without mishaps.
Mnangawa dropped his initial pick as education minister on Saturday,
24 hours after appointing him, after a public outcry and reshuffled two others
to meet a Constitutional requirement that all but five ministers be Members of
Parliament.
This has left the information portfolio vacant after he
named Chris Mutsvangwa, the influential leader of the war veterans’
association, as special advisor to the president.
Mutsvangwa has defended the cabinet, which at 22 is smaller
than Mugabe’s 33-strong team, saying the two military appointments were not
unique to Zimbabwe.
He also said Mnangagwa had “engaged” the opposition MDC
party about taking part in an “inclusive” government, but its leader Morgan
Tsvangirai had blocked it -- a claim disputed by the MDC.
“As far as we are concerned there was no contact whatsoever
between President Mnangagwa, ZANU-PF and our party regarding the possibility of
inclusion or involvement of our members in the government,” MDC Vice President
Nelson Chamisa told Reuters.
Reuters
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