The international media has been awash with reports that opposition MDC party leader Morgan Tsvangirai is on his way to become executive prime minister with President Robert Mugabe reduced to a purely ceremonial role. But ZimOnline has established that all these reports are not true.
The Star newspaper of Johannesburg even went as far as quoting a document that it said was a draft agreement confirming the executive premiership for Tsvangirai and a ceremonial presidency for Mugabe whom the newspaper said would also be granted blanket immunity from any future prosecution.
ZimOnline is authoritatively informed that this was in fact a draft discussion paper by one of the MDC factions participating in the talks which had been inputted by South Africa and not a draft agreement as reported.
Our sources, who agreed to speak on condition they were not named, said Mugabe’s party ZANU PF had flatly refused to have the veteran leader demoted to a ceremonial role and insisted he would have to retain some executive powers if the negotiations are to produce a deal.
President Thabo Mbeki, who reports had said would travel to Harare on Thursday for a meeting with Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara – leader of the smaller MDC formation – was in fact in his country and had a number of activities planned for Friday, including receiving accreditation documents from several new diplomats to Pretoria.
ZimOnline is informed that Mbeki – southern Africa’s chief mediator in the talks – will now travel to Harare this weekend to mediate a meeting between Tsvangirai, Mugabe and Mutambara that will tackle some outstanding issues about the power sharing system.
“The principals (Mugabe and Tsvangirai) will iron out a number of outstanding issues and concretise the draft agreement in the presence of Mbeki . . . ,” said a source.
The source added: “If all is agreed the agreement would then be referred to experts for the requisite legal drafting needed to effect constitutional amendment number 19 to pave way for Tsvangirai’s inclusion in government, among other things.
“Mbeki will also fulfill his wish to greet his fellow SADC (Southern African Development Community) peers with an agreement on Zimbabwe in hand at their summit in Johannesburg next week.”
It was not immediately clear whether Tsvangirai would ultimately accept sharing executive powers with Mugabe.
Tsvangirai had put forward two positions which his larger formation of the MDC considered non-negotiable. These were that he should either be at the very top of any new unity or transitional government to emerge from the talks or at least become executive prime minister with Mugabe demoted to a ceremonial role.
The talks had almost collapsed after ZANU PF had offered Tsvangirai the third vice-presidency.
Sources said progress had since been made since the talks resumed on Monday but they emphasized that this progress did not mean that Mugabe would become a “wholly ceremonial King”.
Zimbabwe’s feuding political parties began dialogue about two weeks ago in a bid to break a long-running crisis that took a turn for the worse following Mugabe’s disputed and violent re-election in the June.
The SADC and the African Union have leaned heavily on Zimbabwe’s political leaders to form a power-sharing government seen as the most viable way to end a political and economic crisis seen in severe food shortages, deepening poverty, 80 percent unemployment and the world’s highest inflation rate of
more than two million percent. – ZimOnline