A source told us that Mbeki, frustrated by the lack of progress over the talks, has told the negotiating parties that the process cannot drag on forever in view of the fact that elections are due to be held in March next year.
In March leaders of the regional Southern African Development Community mandated Mbeki to broker talks between Zanu PF and the MDC.
The powerful national executive council of the MDC is to convene an emergency meeting in Harare on Wednesday, in view of the new deadline.
MDC policy co-ordinator Eddie Cross said the developing situation has forced the national executive to meet urgently and review the talks. He said the party is expected to decide on the next steps to be taken, after a full briefing from Tendai Biti, the secretary-general of the party.
‘It’s a make or break meeting. We are actually carrying out a post-mortem of the whole exercise and if we find we have insufficient reason to continue we might vote to pull out. But if we believe there has been progress we will obviously want to see the talks through to the 15th,’ Cross said.
Their party leader Morgan Tsvangirai however seems to have made up his mind over the issue when he dismissed as ‘paper discussions’ the ongoing talks with Zanu PF.
Tsvangirai told his supporters at a rally in Harare; ‘If you check how far we have gone with the talks in the last five months, it’s just paper discussions.” He accused Mugabe’s Zanu PF party of insincerity in its commitment to concessions made during the talks.
The two MDC factions, the other led by Arthur Mutambara, are both taking part in the talks. Mutambara’s faction has however, remained upbeat about the talks against the growing impatience of Tsvangirai’s faction.
Tsvangirai expressed his disappointment with the talks to the South African President, who met Mugabe and the opposition en-route to the Commonwealth summit a week ago in Uganda. – SW Radio (London)
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