HARARE – President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai,
Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara hold crisis talks tomorrow but
sources said there was little prospect that the three leaders will be
able to resolve outstanding issues threatening to derail the unity
government.
Failure by the three principals to the global political agreement (GPA)
to resolve the outstanding matters is threatening the life of the
inclusive government formed on February 13 with tomorrow's meeting set
to take place five days after the Tsvangirai-led formation of the MDC
issued an ultimatum on the sticking points.
The MDC-T said the principals should resolve the outstanding issues by
tomorrow or else the party's national council would meet on May 17 to
decide the way forward.
The party, however, was quick to say quitting the inclusive government was not an option.
Failed to compromise
Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara have met six times in the last three
weeks and failed to compromise on their positions on the outstanding
issues, among them, the reappointment of ambassadors, permanent
secretaries and provincial governors.
The other sticking issues are the reappointment of central bank
governor Gideon Gono and the appointment of Attorney-General Johannes
Tomana.
More problems are now dogging the unity government, among them Mugabe's
unilateral seizure of the communications department from the Ministry
of Information Communication Technology run by Nelson Chamisa of the
MDC-T and his refusal to swear in the party's treasurer-general Roy
Bennett as Deputy Agriculture Minister.
Sources in the inclusive government, Zanu (PF) and the two MDC
formations said tomorrow's meeting would not yield positive results as
the two main protagonists – Mugabe and Tsvangirai – were poles apart on
the outstanding issues.
More arrogant
The sources said Mugabe had over the past three weeks become more
arrogant and dismissive of Tsvangirai's proposals to resolve the
sticking matters.
Mugabe, the sources said, had told Tsvangirai and Mutambara that
governors should be allowed to serve their two-year terms before
considering their replacement in line with the outcome of the March
2008 parliamentary elections.
In terms of the outcome of the polls, MDC-T should have five governors, Zanu (PF) four and the other MDC one.
The sources said Mugabe was also adamant that Gono and Tomana would not
be forced out of office because they were appointed in accordance with
the laws of the country and that their appointments were done way
before the inclusive government was formed.
He is also of the view that you cannot just remove permanent
secretaries because of political change, a senior government official
said. Permanent secretaries are technocrats and it will require huge
sums of money to retire them.
Tsvangirai and Mutambara, the sources said, were adamant that Mugabe
had committed himself to the GPA and during the January Southern
African Development Community (SADC) extraordinary meeting that the
outstanding issue would be resolved in terms of the September 2008 deal.
Shifting goal posts
Tsvangirai and Mutambara accused Mugabe of shifting goal posts,
another source said. They accused Mugabe of breaching the GPA by
reappointing Gono and hiring Tomana after the deal was signed.
The GPA states that important government posts should be filled after agreement between the principals.
Prospects of success of tomorrow's meeting are zero, a member of the
MDC-T national council said on Friday. Mugabe is not willing to
compromise, so is our president. We are heading for a stalemate.
The source said the MDC-T national council would meet on May 17 to declare a stalemate if tomorrow's meeting fails.
Once a stalemate is declared it means SADC as guarantors of the GPA
should move in to resolve the outstanding issues, he added. There is
no doubt among our leaders that this matter can only be handled by
SADC.
Too early
Tsvangirai's spokesperson James Maridadi last Friday said it was early
to predict that Monday's meeting would fail to produce positive results.
The principals should be given an opportunity to resolve the
outstanding issues, Maridadi said. Like what I have been saying
before, progress has been made on a number of issues and there are also
differences on other issues. The prime minister is hopeful that on
Monday positive results will be attained.
Efforts to get a comment from Zanu (PF) spokesperson Ephraim Masawi
were in vain at the time of going to press as he was not answering his
mobile phone.
However, he was quoted by an online news agency on Thursday saying Zanu
(PF) remains committed to the inclusive government and was striving to
resolve the outstanding issues.
Masawi said the MDC-T should not issue ultimatums and deadlines on negotiations.
Not serious
Political analysts said the delay in resolving the sticking matters
showed that the principals were not serious and committed to the GPA.
They have spent months dealing with the same issues so surely each
party knows what the other wants and each party knows what is
reasonable, said Alex Magaisa, a lawyer and political analyst based in
the UK.
These issues which currently occupy the government should be matters
of the past; the government should be dealing with key matters relating
to social and economic issues like health, water, education, food and
production which impact on people's daily lives.
Magaisa was critical of MDC-T's imposition of a deadline on the sticking issues.
The trouble is you get exposed if you do not make effective
follow-ups. What happens if Mugabe fails to meet the deadline? No one
knows. We have seen the MDC setting many deadlines before all coming to
nothing, he said.
So it depends if the MDC is serious this time; serious enough to
actually decide to walk away should the demands not be met. I am not
sure they have the will and capacity to do that. They are in too deep
and some of them have found comfortable seats on the gravy train, so
there will be many conflicting interests.
He said the MDC-T's option would be to call upon SADC to intervene, but
the regional organisation might say, wait for the six-month review,
thereby giving a lifeline to the government.