Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has accused President Robert Mugabe of unilaterally expelling the Libyan ambassador, Taher Elmagrahi, and his staff this week.
On Tuesday, Elmagrahi was given three days to leave Zimbabwe by Zanu-PF, after he defected to the National Transitional Council (NTC), who are now widely accepted as the new government of Libya.
He and his staff left Harare on Thursday after sealing off their embassy in Harare and auctioning some of their vehicles, furniture and clothing.
Locals teachers at the diplomatic schools at the embassy building were reportedly retrenched after being paid their salaries and benefits up to December this year.
But in a clear sign that the coalition government was singing from a different hymn book, Jameson Timba, the minister of state in the Prime Minister's Office, said Tsvangirai viewed the decision to expel the ambassador and his entire staff as unilateral.
"The prime minister's position is that the decision to expel the Libyan ambassador was unilateral, taken in his absence and as such that matter needs to be brought to cabinet for a collective decision which binds the coalition government," said Timba, who is also the secretary for International Relations and Cooperation.
"It is also the position of the prime minister that it is not up to us to determine who represents the Libyans in Zimbabwe."
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