Prime Minister gives Mugabe ultimatum

Tsvangirai made his position clear during a meeting last Monday, which lasted a record 10 minutes. Highly placed sources told The Zimbabwean on Tuesday that Tsvangirai demanded that Mugabe appoint members of the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) and ensure that the hate speech by the state media stops.

The Prime Minister has now resorted to using strong language to try to push Mugabe into implementing the GPA. He has been telling Mugabe that if he continues delaying the implementation of the agreed issues, he will not hesitate to pull out of the GPA, said a source.

Following the exchange with Tsvangirai, Mugabe is said to have called a meeting with the state media editors on Friday and ordered them to stop using hate speech. The meeting was attended by editors from Zimpapers and Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), information minister Webster Shamhu and his permanent secretary George Charamba.

Shamu and Charamba held meetings later that day with editors of both institutions and blasted them for not giving Mugabe enough coverage.

In another development, Tsvangirai held a meeting on Friday morning with civic society groups when he said he had told Mugabe to make sure that there were no more delays to the constitution-making process.

He told us that (Tendai) Biti has already secured US$11m and will start disbursing the funds from treasury. Tsvangirai said he is now going to be issuing ultimatums on each and every outstanding issue, said a civil society representative.

Tsvangirai is also said to have promised civic society leaders that he would push for the reversal of the appointment of senior army officer Douglas Nyikayaramba as one of the chairs of the constitution committees.

Nyikayaramba was named by a Crisis in Zimbabwe (CZC) report as one of the people who organised last years political violence.