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Interesting to see finally starting to say what he and his party really feel on the issue of targeted sanctions against Zanu-PF leaders.

For the most part, he and his MDC have kept fairly close to the spirit of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) which commits them to paying at least grudging lip-service to the cause of removing the travel restrictions on President Mugabe and his allies.
Does this more confrontational line signal the unofficial start of the MDC's election campaign?

And if it does, are we now likely to see an escalation of the low-level violence, orchestrated by Zanu-PF, that's already surfaced during the constitutional discussions?

The sanctions issue remains a messy one for the MDC. The economic growth Zimbabwe is finally experiencing - perhaps 8% this year - proves beyond doubt that the sanctions have nothing (or almost nothing) to do with the country's earlier economic collapse.
And yet politically the issue is still dangerously toxic - a rallying point for President Mugabe and his party, and source of endless regional friction - see on the subject which come despite the troubles are still having in the country.

The MDC does not want to fight an election campaign - which could come at any moment, although the end of next year seems most likely - with the sanctions still in place, and with President Mugabe branding Mr Tsvangirai and his colleagues "colonial stooges."

But as a western diplomatic source in Harare put it, we are "pretty cautious on the matter... there's no way we're going to advocate the limp-wristed dropping of sanctions" without preconditions.

The trouble is, those sanctions haven't proved very effective in nudging Zanu-PF towards full implementation of the GPA. There's no obvious reason why that should change now. It will take an election to break the log-jam. But on that front, Mr Mugabe holds most of the cards, and a clean, peaceful vote doesn't look too likely.

Sources here in South Africa, closely involved in trying to keep the coalition government alive, don't seem to have much confidence in the MDC's organisational stamina ahead of those elections. One senior official told me Prime Minister Tsvangirai needed to raise his game, and energise his base, if he wants to topple Mr Mugabe.

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