Zimbabwe opposition leader says Mugabe regime 'collapsing'

Johannesburg, Jan.16 (ANI): Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has claimed that the Robert Mugabe's regime is 'collapsing'.

Speaking in Johannesburg, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) told The Daily Telegraph: "It's already collapsing. They can't pay the police, they can't pay soldiers, they can't pay civil servants.

"There's a lot more dysfunction in Zanu-PF than we are able to appreciate," he added.With ever more shops selling goods only in foreign currency, usually US dollars and South African rand, he pointed out that many state employees were unable to buy anything with their already pitiful wages.

Zimbabwe has been in a political stalemate since September, when a power-sharing agreement was signed between the parties, but it quickly bogged down amid disputes over ministerial allocations made unilaterally by Mugabe and arguments over the two men's relative power.

Now more than 2,000 people have been killed by an epidemic of cholera, normally a very treatable disease, hyperinflation has accelerated to astronomical levels, and five million people need food aid.

Tsvangirai said his party remained committed to the power-sharing process - which Washington has given up hope for.

But he said that the outstanding issues had to be resolved first so that it led to a functional, as well as an inclusive, government, and the MDC's patience was finite.

"We have been in struggle for these last 10 years, this democratic struggle and we have met so many frustrating obstacles. I'm sure that when this deal collapses, if it collapses, the MDC will have to find alternative democratic means to put pressure to the regime. We are not going to sit down and cry and mourn," he said.He also categorically denied allegations by Harare that the MDC is training volunteers in guerrilla warfare in Botswana "or anywhere else in Africa", describing it as a figment of Zanu-PF's imagination.

Analysts say a popular uprising is extremely unlikely, and armed struggle unfeasible.

In an ominous sign for the Mugabe regime, soldiers rioted in Harare last month in protest at being unable to withdraw their salaries from banks. (ANI)