“Come and get your brand new white Mercedes!” an official told Coltart, a veteran opposition politician, as President Robert Mugabe peered down from a portrait on his office wall.

The offer of an E-Class Mercedes to every minister in the month-old power-sharing government was vintage Mugabe, an effort to seduce his political enemies with the lavish perks he has long bestowed on loyalists.

Coltart said no thanks.

Opposition members like Coltart who joined Mugabe in office last month have already achieved some successes, like getting teachers back to work and winning the release of some political prisoners; but many of them warned in interviews that the progress would be short-lived if Western nations, meeting Friday in Washington, D.C., to discuss expanding assistance, do not extend billions of dollars in aid to rebuild Zimbabwe.