Police in Zimbabwe detained two members of parliament from Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on Monday after they turned up at parliament to take part in a swearing-in ceremony, the MDC said.
George Sibotshiwe, spokesman for MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, said Shua Mudiwa, MP for Mutare West, and Eliah Jembere, MP for Epworth, had both been detained when they arrived to take up their posts.
The MDC had feared that the state might move to arrest some of its MPs to shrink its numbers ahead of a key vote for the parliamentary speaker on Monday.
Mudiwa and Jembere were among the MDC MPs detained in recent months as part of what the MDC says is an attempt by President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF to overturn its defeat in parliamentary elections in March. The two were later released.
The crackdown comes as parliament was about be sworn in, as Mugabe tries to force Tsvangirai into a power-sharing deal on his own terms.
Mugabe's move to convene parliament comes despite warnings from the MDC that it risks killing power-sharing talks.
Those talks are currently deadlocked over how Mugabe and Tsvangirai would share power.
The convening comes despite Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, leader of a breakaway MDC faction, agreeing at the outset of their negotiations in July not to convene parliament or form a government, "save by consensus."
After being sworn in, the MPs must choose a speaker of parliament - a position hotly contested by all sides.
Tsvangirai's MDC has 100 MPs, Zanu-PF has 99, and there is one independent. The balance of power is held by Mutambara's faction which has 10 seats.
Tsvangirai's MDC faction needs all its MPs to be present if it is to have a chance of clinching the post.
Business Day newspaper in South Africa quoted unnamed sources as saying that Zanu-PF was likely to support Mutambara's choice of speaker in return for a promise from him to work with Zanu-PF in parliament.
But it was not clear whether all of Mutambara's MPs, who, until 2006 called Tsvangirai their leader, would agree to a pact with Mugabe.
Power-sharing talks mediated by South African President Thabo Mbeki stalled earlier this month over what role Tsvangirai and Mugabe would have in the unity government, with each insisting on having the lion's share of power.
The MDC is calling for Tsvangirai to have complete control of government. Zanu-PF insists that Mugabe remain executive president.
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