Morgan Tsvangirai will use his inauguration as Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister this week to appeal to the West to fund the rebuilding of his shattered country even though Robert Mugabe remains the President.

The leader of the Movement for Democratic Change will address tens of thousands of Zimbabweans in a Harare sports stadium after a private swearing-in ceremony on Wednesday. He will outline an ambitious 100-day programme of reconstruction and democratisation and urge the West to back it with desperately needed finance.

His appeal will put Britain, the US and the European Union on the spot because they are deeply sceptical about the “unity government”. They doubt that Mr Mugabe has any intention of surrendering real power to the MDC and regard the new arrangement as a ploy to give his regime a veneer of legitimacy.

“He’s walked into a trap,” one senior Western official said of Mr Tsvangirai. An MDC source countered: “If the West doesn’t back Tsvangirai and the new Government, then it’s dead in the water – and so is Zimbabwe. “Without Western aid we can’t deliver and if we can’t deliver we can’t overcome Zanu (PF)’s policies of corruption and repression.”

MDC officials said that the party would attempt to use its parliamentary majority to repeal repressive legislation and hold officials to account, its control of every city council to restore basic services and Mr Tsvangirai’s huge personal popularity to rally the people and eclipse Mr Mugabe. They expect Zanu (PF) to oppose Mr Tsvangirai’s programme at every turn and are braced for two years of “hand-to-hand combat” with a regime that has spent the past eight years beating, torturing and killing MDC activists.

In a letter to Zimbabwe’s Standard newspaper the British Embassy in Harare said that long-term funding would depend on the new Government demonstrating a genuine commitment to the rule of law, economic stabilisation, the democratic process and human rights.

It stated: “It is unlikely that any Government involving Mugabe will inspire donor confidence and attract the support it so badly needs.” Zanu (PF) has agreed that Mr Tsvangirai can have an office in the same building as Mr Mugabe and that the MDC can table legislation in parliament tomorrow to place the security and intelligence services under a new National Security Council chaired by Mr Mugabe with Mr Tsvangirai as his deputy. The two parties are thought to be close to agreeing an equitable division of Zimbabwe’s ten provincial governorships.

The regime has done little else to suggest that it will change its ways, however. It has yet to accept the MDC’s demand that more than 30 opposition activists held for three months on spurious terrorism charges be released from prison before the new Government is set up.

The police last week arrested five white farmers who were part of a group that won a landmark lawsuit in November when the Southern African Development Community tribunal ruled that the seizure of their farms had been illegal. The regime ignored that ruling and is apparently now gunning for the 78 farmers who brought the case.

Zimbabwean newspapers report that Mr Mugabe is preparing to name Zanu (PF) hardliners as ministers and that his henchmen are raising $300,000 (£200,000) to celebrate his 85th birthday on February 21 despite the fact that seven million of his compatriots are starving.

Mr Mugabe recently reappointed Gideon Gono, the Reserve Bank Governor responsible for Zimbabwe’s catastrophic hyper-inflation, without consulting the MDC and last Tuesday Mr Gono preempted the new Government by presenting his monetary policy statement.

The parties have not even agreed whether Zimbabwe’s generals will have to salute Mr Tsvangirai at the inauguration.

MDC officials said that the new Prime Minister would not call for the lifting of Western sanctions against 178 individuals and organisations linked to the excesses of the Mugabe regime.

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