South African President Thabo Mbeki has a difficult task as mediator in the talks between Zimbabwe’s ruling party Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which are unlikely to get the country out of its current economic problems.
Last week, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade was in Zimbabwe to help broker the talks with Mbeki and other African leaders.
However, some people think that Wade’s visit might be an indication that Africa has realised the enormity of the mediatory task in the complex political situation in the country.
With the “one million men and women march” in Harare last week, many people feel there is little Zanu-PF party can offer for it and MDC to arrive at a win-win situation.
Some officials with close links to the two parties say they feel the Mbeki-mediated talks collapsed after only a few weeks because they were not borne out of a genuine commitment by the parties involved.
The crisis in Zimbabwe runs deep, with inflation above 15,000 per cent – the highest in the world – and a record-breaking national budget running into quadrillions of dollars, which is soon expected to hit the quintillion (18 zeroes) mark.
President Mbeki was mandated by the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) to mediate between President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF and Morgan Tsvangirayi’s MDC in an attempt to restore normalcy in Zimbabwe.
Although already showing signs of strain, the negotiations are expected to straighten a number of issues, including ensuring a new democratic constitution, humane media laws, electoral laws that ensure elections are not rigged and an amendment to security legislation.
But it is clear from the slow progress that neither party expects the talks to achieve much, and that they might, in fact, be taking President Mbeki for a ride.
With the presidential, parliamentary and council elections due next year, Zanu-PF and the MDC were expected to take the talks that began in May seriously. But it is embarrassing that they missed the September deadline for submitting various critical reports. The deadline was extended to October, then November, but they still failed to meet it.
Each party has two representatives at the talks. Zanu-PF is represented by Patrick Chinamasa, the Legal Affairs Minister, and Nicholas Goche, the Social Welfare and Public Service Minister while the MDC is represented by Welshman Ncube and Tendai Biti.
Mbeki’s last visit to Zimbabwe on his way to the Commonwealth Summit in Uganda last month was meant to follow up on the progress the two parties had made regarding the issues they had promised to tackle by the end of November. However, they were not ready.
Mbeki gave them up to the end of the first week of December before they could meet again for him to be able to make his presentation to the SADC troika on politics, defence and security chairman, President Eduardo Dos Santos of Angola.
The MDC called a press conference to announce that it needed more time to work on its report on its position on sanctions and land.
Meanwhile, Zanu-PF has been reluctant to make any electoral amendments, largely because it views this as the wrong time to be make such drastic changes, given that the country’s elections are just a few months away.
However, it is apparent from what has been coming out of the ruling party’s meetings in the past few weeks that it is going to be difficult to reach a compromise with regard to the requests being made by the MDC, which sees electoral amendments as critical if it is to beat Zanu-PF in next year’s elections.
The MDC claims that with the current electoral laws, it is possible to manipulate the elections. In addition, it says, the country’s security laws and militarisation of public institutions does not ensure a level playing field or protection for its supporters.
During Mbeki’s last visit, the MDC leader, Tsvangirayi, presented a report chronicling violence that has been perpetrated against his supporters, with allegations that several people were killed during the political clashes that hit some parts of the country in recent weeks.
But President Mugabe dismissed the allegations, saying it was not the first time the MDC was desperately trying blame its own failures on Zanu-PF.
Political analysts say those who understand the complexity of Zimbabwe’s politics will understand if President Mbeki’s efforts fail to achieve anything significant. They add that there is no way the opposition party, whose infiltration by ruling party agents has seen it divided into two, would agree on a common position to take on all critical areas, which might lead to direct sharing of power.
The Tsvangirayi-led faction is believed to be the genuine party while the faction led by Professor Arthur Mutambara is viewed as weak and a branch of the ruling Zanu-PF.
“Mbeki is burdened. Nothing really significant will emerge from those talks because the ruling party will obviously want to take more and give less. The MDC backed Zanu-PF’s constitutional amendment, which Mugabe said would open doors for reciprocal negotiations, but Mugabe has so far not fulfilled his promise,” a political analyst said.
During his recent visit, Mbeki urged Mugabe to return the favour by at least honouring some of the requests put forward by the opposition.
“Mugabe is a leader who plays his cards well and what he wants is for his party to win the elections next year. He will not compromise his chances by giving in to the MDC’s demands, so we expect a lot of delaying tactics by the ruling party for it to buy time and frustrate the MDC,” the political analyst added.
The failure of the talks might complicate the elections even further, and possibly see the two MDC factions, or at least the Tsvangirayi faction, boycotting the them. It is understood that the Tsvangirayi faction is willing to make compromises to bring about changes that might boost its chances of getting more votes.
The split of the MDC has also cost the party donor funding, which had been pouring in since its formation.
It is important to note that this is not the first time efforts have been made to bring the MDC, which advocated for the imposition of sanctions against Zimbabwe, and Zanu-PF to the negotiating table.
Two years ago, Mbeki tried to facilitate negotiations but failed due to the adamant stand taken by Zanu- PF; the ruling party claimed that there was no need for an outside mediator since it was already negotiating with MDC members who sit in parliament.
Those talks, like the current ones, were shrouded in secrecy, leaving the public to speculate on what was going on.
Some political scientists view this as a strong indication that the talks will not resolve the Zimbabwean crisis.
For one, President Mugabe will never forgive Tsvangirayi for turning against him, disturbing the peace in the country, acting in collusion with whites and successfully calling for sanctions against the country.
Tsvangirayi was just a “tea boy” before he became a trade unionist and managed to influence people to conduct massive demonstrations against Mugabe in 1997, before he formed the first ever opposition party since independence, which became popular.
Tsvangirayi contested the 2002 presidential election, which were widely believed to have been rigged by Mugabe using his right-hand man, Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede.
It would be surprising, therefore, if Mugabe were to agree to come face to face with Tsvangirayi, whom he blames for the country’s current economic problems.
It is possible that Mbeki tried to bring the two leaders together before he realised that there was more to the crisis than meets the eye.
Mugabe may smile and put on a show for the media when he meets and shakes hands with Mbeki, who eats and dine with the West, but he will never back down on his stance towards Tsvangirayi, whom he accuses of wining with the West and plotting to recolonise Zimbabwe.
Mugabe, who wore a brave face for the media when Wade (who is believed not to be particularly close to him) visited the country, is suffering the effects of old age; he will be 84 next February.
Thus, many say, he has become a rigid, egotistical hardliner who forgets that not all African leaders who want to safeguard and promote investment and collaboration with the West are fools.
Many Africans respect other races and strongly believe that the most important thing is for all people to co-exist peacefully.
Besides, Africa is blessed with a variety of resources, which its people have not used to their advantage, first, because of colonialsm, and more recently, due to limited technology and unfair trade practices, which force Africans to sell their resources cheaply to the West.
But while Africa should unite and speak with one voice against unfair global trade practices, Africans should understand that, while they need to control their resources, they have to bear in mind that they are trying to develop at a time when the West and Asian countries like Japan and China have already developed and would want to maintain the status quo because it is advantageous to them.
And that being the case, they have to handle these issues tactfully.
Unlike Mugabe, who personally feels he does not care about the West, the young generation in Zimbabwe believes that the West is an important component of the country’s development, and that it is critical to have a leader who upholds the ideals of the country’s struggle while at the same time nurturing a give-and-take relationship with the West, Asia and the Middle East.
Many Zimbabweans are not following the ongoing negotiations because of the strident calls by Mugabe’s supporters demonstrating in the streets.
Many had expected serious negotiations, which would result in Tsvangirayi’s being given a senior post in the government, or even in the presidium.
But the ruling party will never accept such an arrangement. Worse still, the army has threatened war should people vote in the opposition.
This is a clear indication that there will be no serious negotiations since the two sides are being pressured to talk.
Genuine negotiations call for both parties to acknowledge where they have gone wrong to allow for correction.
No negotiations will take place when each party has issues on which it is not willing to budge.
The negotiations in Zimbabwe are the result of the SADC’s failure to take a stronger stand against Mugabe, who is seen as tarnishing the region’s image.
Some of the new leaders in the SADC region who came to power after Mugabe and understudied him while at university regard him as a hero and would never openly criticize him.
Others, like Mbeki and Hifikepunye Pohamba of Namibia and Arimando Guebuza of Mozambique, feel they owe Mugabe a lot for having supported them in their hour of need.
Yet other leaders feel it is important to maintain the peace, stability and trust within the region by standing by Mugabe in his last years of leadership.
If the region is divided, it would be difficult to reconcile differences in the long term.
At the highest political levels, this has been the principle – to support “the old man” for the sake of peace and security of the region.
On the ground, neighbouring countries are showing insreasing hostility towards suffering Zimbabweans fleeing their country in search of better better jobs or a better life.
The SADC region leaders want to show the whole world that they are doing something about Zimbabwe, whose economic crisis is now in its seventh year.
But whether anything significant will come out of the halting negotiations, only time will tell.
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