Washington - The United States on Tuesday welcomed the power sharing arrangement worked out between Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and Washington expects the deal to be fully carried out by both sides. The deal called for Mugabe to end his 28-year monopoly on power by naming Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) as prime minister and divide cabinet posts evenly between the MDC and Mugabe's Zanu-PF party.
"What we would expect is that the agreement be faithfully implemented, this agreement that the MDC said it supports and is comfortable with. Therefore, we are supportive of it," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
"We'll see how this plays out, but certainly it is a good moment for Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC that they have gotten to the point where they can negotiate this kind of agreement," McCormack added.
Tsvangirai was Mugabe's rival for 10 years and was subjected to numerous arrests while Zimbabwean police cracked down on the MDC. The political turmoil reached a boiling point this year when the MDC apparently defeated Mugabe in March 29 elections.
Mugabe's government refused to release the results of the vote for more than a month before announcing that Tsvangirai has not won the more than 50 per cent needed to win outright, forcing a runoff in a vote count largely described as fraudulent by international observers and western countries.
In the weeks that followed, Mugabe forces launched a harsh crackdown against the MDC and Tsvangirai, forcing the opposition leader to drop out of the run-off election less than a week before the June 27 balloting.
Mugabe's easy victory was dubbed a "sham" by the United States and European Union. Both have enacted sanctions on Zimbabwe over Mugabe's repressive regime.
