 The negotiators from Zimbabwe’s key political parties landed in Joburg
on Thursday night for what now appears to be Mbeki’s last chance to secure a
deal before Mugabe appoints a new cabinet and effectively closes the
negotiations.
 Authoritative sources said Mugabe, who was ready to announce a new
cabinet on Thursday – excluding the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change, had been persuaded to delay that move to give Friday’s talks a last
chance.
 The talks will begin between the Zimbabweans and Mbeki’s
representatives: Sydney Mufamadi, Mojanku Gumbie and Frank Chikane. It is
not clear when Mbeki will meet the negotiators.
 Sources said officials in Arthur Mutambara’s faction of the MDC, who
have accepted the Mbeki-brokered deal currently on the table, had persuaded
Mugabe to delay appointing a cabinet to give the talks one more chance.
  If there is no progress in Pretoria on Friday, there would be nothing
to stop Mugabe appointing his cabinet, effectively sealing the final nail in
the coffin of the deadlocked talks, said one source.
 Tendai Biti, the chief negotiator of Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC faction,
arrived earlier on Thursday. His co-negotiator, Elton Mangoma, and Zanu-PF
representatives – Patrick Chinamasa and Nicholas Goche – had all landed in
Joburg by Thursday night.
 Welshman Ncube, the lead negotiator of Mutambara’s MDC, was due to
arrive on Friday morning.
 “I don’t know,” was all Mbeki’s spokesperson could say in an sms
response to a question about whether Mbeki had invited the negotiating
parties and whether the talks would resume on Friday.
 One authoritative source close to the dialogue said she was not eager
to use the term “negotiations”, preferring to say “consultations”.
 This is because Mbeki, like many other regional leaders he met in
Joburg two weeks ago, is satisfied with the deal on the table that
Tsvangirai has refused to accept.
 Tsvangirai has rejected the deal, saying it would leave Mugabe as
executive president while demoting him to a minor role of “ceremonial prime
minister”.
 “I don’t think there will be any deep negotiations on the substantive
issues, save for consultations on whether Tsvangirai can be persuaded to
sign and if not, the way forward,” said another source.
 “I doubt that Chinamasa and Goche will bring a bag of further
concessions from Mugabe.”
 The Star has also been informed that Tsvangirai will not change his
demands to be executive prime minister.
 Unless his demands are met, Biti’s mandate is therefore to ask Mbeki
to declare that the negotiations are dead, to enable other world leaders to
chart a way forward.