Surprise opposition win in Zimbabwe parliamentBy ANGUS SHAW
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe's main opposition party won the top job in parliament on Monday, a surprise victory for democracy that could give the opposition leverage in deadlocked power-sharing talks following the country's disputed election.
The win for the opposition marks the first time since independence in 1980 that President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party do not control parliament.
However, Mugabe still retains power to dissolve parliament and rule through emergency regulations by presidential decree.
ZANU-PF had been expected to win the key post of speaker but it did not nominate a candidate because "the figures were against us," party legislator Walter Mzemdi said. ZANU-PF legislators were instructed to vote for the leader of a splinter opposition faction, Paul Themba-Nyathi, he said.
But Lovemore Moyo, of Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change, won the position by 110 votes to 98. The distribution of votes in the secret ballot showed Moyo apparently got votes from both Mugabe's party and the breakaway splinter faction.
Mugabe, 84, has been in power since 1980 and for years was revered for leading the seven-year bush war to oust the white-minority government that ruled the former British colony.
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