Zimbabwe`s MDC To Name Cabinet Team

Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) spokesman Nelson Chamisa said Tsvangirai would make an announcement at 1000 GMT.

Zimbabwe's MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai is expected on Tuesday to name his cabinet team to serve in a unity government with President Robert Mugabe, MDC officials said.

Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) spokesman Nelson Chamisa said Tsvangirai would make an announcement at 1000 GMT, but did not provide details.

Senior MDC officials said party Secretary General Tendai Biti was frontrunner to be finance minister, a post that would charge him with reviving Zimbabwe's collapsed economy.

"Barring any last minute changes I can say Biti will certainly be the man at finance," an MDC official told Reuters.

Tsvangirai, whose MDC party agreed to form a coalition government with Mugabe last week, will be sworn in as prime minister on Wednesday under the terms of last year's power-sharing deal.

A cabinet, comprising ministers from Mugabe's ZANU-PF, Tsvangirai's MDC and a splinter MDC group, will be sworn in on Friday.

Zimbabwe was once the breadbasket of southern Africa and one of the continent's most promising economies but hyperinflation means prices now double every day, unemployment is rising fast and the currency is virtually worthless.

The finance minister will need to quickly spell out his plans for reviving the economy to reassure anxious Zimbabweans and to woo sceptical Western donors and foreign investors.