Caution rules in the new Zimbabwe

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Andrew Harding evades Zimbabwe's restrictions on foreign journalists to assess the country's new power sharing arrangement.Opposition supporters in Zimbabwe still fear the security forces

It has been a strange few days in Zimbabwe, it is hard to sum up the mood here.

Everything has changed and nothing has changed.

I drove into Harare late on Monday, or rather, slalomed round the potholes. The city is looking shabbier than ever.

Unkempt grass along the roadsides as tall as a man. Derelict factories. Listless crowds on littered pavements.

The place reminds me of the Burmese capital, Rangoon. That same sense of decay and, frankly, fear.

People are wary about catching your eye, or talking too long on the phone. Or talking at all.

'Momentous' change

And yet, on paper at least, Zimbabwe is now a different country. No longer run as what you might call President Robert Mugabe's feudal gangster kleptocracy.

Instead after months of painful labour, a new unity government has been borne this week.

They want us to walk away from this deal, we've just got to be smarter than them Roy Bennett, MDC

Morgan Tsvangirai, the new prime minister, stood at an outdoor stadium on Wednesday and, between rain showers, told a rapturous crowd that this was Zimbabwe's "yes we can" moment.

It was the 19th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from jail in South Africa and Mr Tsvangirai was keen to stress the historic parallels, saying that Zimbabwe too was at the start of a momentous political transformation.

And yet, as he acknowledged, just like in South Africa, the path to democracy here will be neither straight nor inevitable.

The crowd seemed to recognise that. I wandered round the stadium.

Two young men holding beer cans said they had no illusions, all this they said, was the just the start.

"The aim is new and legitimate elections, as soon as possible. Then we can get rid of Mugabe at last."

Power struggle

Roy Bennett does not seem the type to be easily intimidated. But on the phone he was sounding cautious.

He is a prominent figure in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). He has spent eight months in Harare's notorious Chikurubi prison, and he had just come back from South Africa to take part in the new government as a deputy minister.

The men who have plundered and wrecked this country certainly seem unlikely to relinquish power without a struggle

But when I called him on Thursday, he said he was in hiding.

Robert Mugabe's security services had, it seemed, just put out an arrest warrant for him.

Mr Bennett was in no doubt that Zanu-PF hardliners were trying to scupper the new coalition.

"They want us to walk away from this deal," he said. "We've just got to be smarter than them."

But Robert Mugabe, just shy of his 85th birthday, is not an easy man to outsmart.

It feels, one prospective MDC minister said to me, "like we're about to get into bed with a snake".

And, sure enough, just yesterday afternoon Roy Bennett was arrested by the police and driven as far from the capital as possible.

It was an act, as one fuming diplomat put it to me, of supreme bad faith by Robert Mugabe.

'Secret administration'

The men who have plundered and wrecked this country certainly seem unlikely to relinquish power without a struggle. Like most foreign journalists, I am here illegally, sneaking around, hopping between safe-houses in Harare

There is every chance they will try to co-opt or corrupt Mr Tsvangirai's ministers and MPs, or simply bypass them altogether and run a secret parallel administration.

They may well succeed. Then again, history sometimes happens when you least expect it.

Maybe this unlikely political experiment will actually work. It could be months before we know for sure.

Although an early sign will be whether or not dozens of MDC supporters and activists are finally released from prison.

On Friday morning I went to meet Zimbabwe's new prime minister. Well, actually, he came to meet me.

Like most foreign journalists, I am here illegally, sneaking around, hopping between safe-houses in Harare.

It is hard to tell if things are getting safer now for us. I suspect they may be. But we are still being cautious and so is Mr Tsvangirai.MDC supporters are still in Harare's notorious Chikurubi prison

And so we met, somewhere, shall we say, in the suburbs. He came, tellingly, in his own personal convoy with his own personal guards.

He could have used the official state motorcade but clearly he and his team do not yet feel comfortable entrusting their safety to the same security services that have tortured, abducted and terrorised members of the MDC for years.

State security came along anyway. Sixteen officers. We hid discreetly in a bedroom, waiting for the prime minister to arrive, savouring the absurdities of Zimbabwe's new political landscape.

Grounds for optimism

Mr Tsvangirai was bullish, feistily defending his shotgun wedding to Mr Mugabe.

"Mugabe may be part of the problem," he said. "But he's also part of the solution. We have to have a negotiated settlement for the sake of the people."

He promised that the next time we met, it would be legally and in his own office.

Reassuringly, state security kept their distance. No funny business.

"It's a process," said one of Mr Tsvangirai's own guards, with a broad grin. "Sure, there have been some frictions. But actually it's going pretty well so far."

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 14 February, 2009 at 1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4. Please check the <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3187926.stm">programme schedules </a>for World Service transmission times.