Tsvangirai to World: ‘Get Over’ Mugabe

Much like an unsympathetic friend counseling you after a breakup, recently installed Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is calling on the world to “get over” the wrongs of President Robert Mugabe.

The Guardian:

Zimbabwe’s new prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, has called on the world “to get over” President Robert Mugabe and stop seeing him as the principal problem facing his country.

Speaking to the Guardian shortly before ministers in the new powersharing government were due to be sworn in today, Tsvangirai said that his most immediate challenges—from finding the money to pay government workers and [freeing] political detainees from prison, to purging the system of some of its worst crooks— now have little to do with the man who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence 29 years ago.

“Unfortunately people are preoccupied with Mugabe as a person. They need to get over it. This has gone beyond Mugabe. People need to stop talking about him as the only issue. Mugabe is part of the problem but he is also part of the solution. He is not the obstacle we are now facing,” he said.

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telegraph.co.uk

Mugabe, left, and Tsvangirai shake hands last July, about the time Mugabe offered Tsvangirai, winner of the presidential election, the paltry post of vice president. Tsvangirai refused, of course, and a power-sharing deal eventually emerged.