7th Parliament of Zimbabwe Mugabe announced his intention to open Parliament in the subsequent week, five months after the parliamentary election was held. Due to ongoing negotiations over the disputed election, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change – Tsvangirai party saw this as unacceptable, with MDC–T Secretary-General Tendai Biti stating that it would "be a clear repudiation of the Memorandum of Understanding, and an indication beyond reasonable doubt of ZANU–PF's unwillingness to continue to be part of the talks. In short, convening Parliament decapitates the dialogue." Nevertheless, Parliament was convened on 25 August 2008. That morning, Mugabe appointed 11 senators, including eight of the
Robert Mugabe Marxist-Leninist regimes in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, in 1991 ZANU-PF removed references to "Marxism-Leninism" and "scientific socialism" in its material, although Mugabe maintained that "socialism remains our sworn ideology". That year, Mugabe pledged himself to free market economics and accepted a structural adjustment programme provided by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This economic reform package called for Zimbabwe to privatise state assets and reduce import tariffs; Mugabe's government implemented some although not all of its recommendations. The reforms encouraged employers to cut their wages, generating growing opposition from the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. By 1990, 52,000