The emergency summit decided that "the prime minister and the deputy prime ministers should be sworn in by 11 February 2009," said Southern African Development Community (SADC) executive secretary Tomaz Salomao.
"The ministers and deputy ministers should be sworn in on 13 February 2009, which will conclude the process of the formation of the inclusive government," he added, reading from a statement of resolutions.
The Harare Tribune also heard that MDC officials were not happy with the SADC resolutions.
While stopping short of rejecting the summit outcome, Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said the summit resolutions "fell far short" of what the party had hoped for, but said it would later define its position.
"Quite clearly, the conclusions reached as reflected in the communique fall far short of our expectations," the party said in a statement.
"It is important that finality be brought to this issue and therefore our national council will meet this weekend to define the party position."
SADC has made similar resolutions in the past, it is not clear whether this time around those resolutions will be implemented.
Further, the MDC rejected as false claims by SADC leaders that it had agreed to join ZANU-PF in a inclusive govt. South African President Kgalema Motlanthe had also told the media that a deal had been reached.
"They will present themselves on the set date for the swearing in and then proceed to form the government," he said of the MDC and ZANU-PF leaders.
It was not immediately clear if Salomao was not reading from the same SADC position paper, published here last week, with merely the dates on the paper changed, and the MDC demands unaddressed.
It is highly likely that the SADC leaders, instead of negotiating to break the impasse, wasted the whole day Monday without doing, only to reproduce the old position paper at the end of the day. The SADC position paper agrees with all ZANU-PF positions, but has nothing for the MDC.
The Harare Tribune heard that in the current "deal", the MDC and ZANU-PF will c0-share the ministry of Home Affairs. If this is true, it would mean that the MDC gave in to one of ZANU-PF’s co-demands.
It is important to point out, as ZANU-PF cadres have said time and again, SADC has no power to implement its resolutions, it’s up to MDC and ZANU-PF to put the resolutions in action. – Harare Tribune
Post published in: News