Harare - Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai will take his worsening standoff with President Robert Mugabe to regional leaders this week, as Mugabe's party vows to plough ahead with government business despite a Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) boycott. Tsvangirai's spokesman James Maridadi said that the MDC leader would be departing Zimbabwe on Monday for meetings with the leaders of Mozambique, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola and South Africa.
South Africa has significant influence in Zimbabwe, while DR Congo holds the rotating chair of the 15-nation Southern African Development Community, the political bloc that brokered Zimbabwe's landmark Global Political Agreement and Mozambique chairs the SADC panel on politics, defence and security.
On Friday Tsvangirai announced that the MDC would "disengage" from Mugabe's "dishonest and unreliable" ZANU-PF party - its coalition partner - until crippling disagreements between the parties were resolved.
The two parties formed a power-sharing government in February in an attempt to kickstart Zimbabwe's economic recovery but progress has been slow as Zanu-PF refuses to share key positions of power and MDC members continue to be harassed and arbitrarily arrested.
Charles Mubita, manager of media affairs at the SADC secretariat, told the German Press Agency
