ZCTU Calls for strike to demand government
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions has called for a general strike starting on Nov. 11 to press Zimbabwe’s political leaders to stop delaying the formation of a government of national unity.
“Zimbabweans are suffering, they are scavenging in bins for food, and they have an absolute right to demand a transitional government,” Lovemore Matombo, the president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, today in a telephone interview from Harare, the capital.
President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF and two factions of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change signed an accord on Sept. 15 to form a coalition government. Since then, they have failed to agree on the allocation of Cabinet posts.
Former South African President Thabo Mbeki, who helped negotiate the agreement, has been trying to broker an end to the dispute. Leaders from the 15-nation Southern African Development Community will meet on Nov. 9 in South Africa to try to break the deadlock between Mugabe and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
Tsvangirai’s MDC won a majority in parliamentary elections in March. He withdrew from a June 27 presidential runoff vote, citing violence against his supporters, leaving Mugabe to extend his 28-year rule unchallenged. Tsvangirai is set to become prime minister under the agreement.
The United Nations estimated last month that more than 5 million Zimbabweans, or 45 percent of the population, may need emergency food rations by early next year. Zimbabwe has the world’s highest inflation rate, estimated at 231 million percent.
The National Constitutional Assembly, a Harare-based lobby group, said today that it would back the strike call by labor.
Transitional Authority
“We agreed with the ZCTU that Zimbabwe needs a transitional authority to govern the country for two years and restore the economy, write a new constitution and lead the people towards fresh elections,” Ernest Mudzengi, the NCA’s national director, said in a phone interview from Harare.
Calls for strike action in Zimbabwe have failed in recent years with workers citing lack of pay and fear of the police as the main reasons for continuing to work.
“This time I believe workers will heed the call to strike because things are so desperate, Matombo of the ZCTU said. “People are suffering in ways that can’t even be described,”
Posted by Wellington Chadehumbe
on November 6, 2008. Filed under Local News.
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