MDC steps up pressure on Mugabe, SADC

A special troika of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) again failed to censure Mugabe for flouting the power-sharing deal, with regional leaders calling on Zimbabwes political parties to engage in dialogueto end to their disputes, including a feud over key government appointments and the arrest and harassment of Tsvangirai loyalists.

Following an eight hours closed meeting, where Mugabe participated most of the time, Tsvangirai resolved to call off his partys October 16 boycott of the unity government it formed with the veteran leader last February.

Tsvangirai said he was giving Mugabe 30 days to implement the power-sharing agreement on the pertinent issues we are concerned about. The MDC party said all outstanding issues should be agreed within 15 days and implemented within 30 days. The MDC said nothing short of full implementation of a September 2008 power-sharing accord would be acceptable. MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said the Troika meeting had ensured that there were tangible deliverables in the implementation of the Global Political Agreement (GPA).

Elections

If this fails, then SADC must make sure it puts in place structural, institutional and constitutional mechanisms and parameters that will ensure a free and fair election so that the people of Zimbabwe have a legitimate government simply because there is no government outside the GPA, he said last week. Zanu (PF) was, however, adamant that it would not be stampeded into resolving anything in the 30-day timeline given by a regional summit.

A spokesman for Mugabe’s party rubbished the MDC demands, insisting last Friday that most of the concerns raised by the former opposition party were never in the GPA in the first place. Zanu (PF) spin-doctor and former information minister Jonathan Moyo told The Zimbabwean on Sunday that his party would only move to implement the two issues of appointment of ambassadors and permanent secretaries since the rest of the issues raised by the MDC were not in the original agreement.

There is a difference between the MDC demands and GPA provisions. The MDC must be prepared to say we have new issues we have come up and the issues are not in the GPA, he said. In typical Zanu (PF) style, the former information minister used semantics to try and explain away the MDCs demands but without giving a real defence of his partys failure to stick to the commitments it made in the GPA.

When announcing its decision to disengage from Zanu (PF) last month, the MDC said it was unhappy with the former ruling partys failure to implement the recommendations of a special SADC summit held in South Africa in January.

Communique

The communique from that summit clearly recommended that the Zimbabwean parties resolve issues relating to Mugabes unilateral appointments of Attorney-General Johannes Tomana and central bank governor Gideon Gono. The MDC has said it wants consensus candidates to replace the two officials but Mugabe has brushed aside the calls, saying both were constitutionally appointed before the MDC joined the power-sharing government in February.

Significantly, the communique also called on Mugabe to appoint six MDC officials as provincial governors in line with the distribution of legislators in the Parliament, but Mugabe has again refused insisting that the 10 provincial governors represent the state president in the provinces, and that the constitution empowers him to exercise his discretion on such appointments.

Welshman Ncube, secretary-general of a breakaway MDC faction led by Arthur Mutambara, said the decision by the SADC Troika was two-fold. “One, the SADC Troika resolved that all parties will immediately be engaged and get back in government and the strike will stop immediately,” Ncube said. He added: “Two, the negotiators or representatives of parties must immediately resume negotiations on all grievances of all parties concurrently. Within 15 days, South Africa will check on progress and review. If in another 15 days if there is no conclusion, the Troika will intervene and assist.”

Ncube said his MDC formation also raised issues at the troika of concern to that party. “We had issues on the appointment of governors for instance, issue of continuous partisan reporting by both public and private media, issue of intolerance, in particular when we organise meetings, the interference,” he said. Ncube said his party did not raise Gono and Tomana’s issues because they had already been raised by MDC-T.

Unwise

Analysts said that neither party left with anything concrete, except for heightened international pressure to make their shaky power-sharing arrangement hold. University of Zimbabwe political science professor John Makumbe said the MDC decision to give Mugabe 30 days was “unwise.” “Zanu (PF) will use the time to twist and turn and create conditions that change the circumstances,” Makumbe told The Zimbabwean on Sunday.

He said Mugabe would try to trap the SADC and MDC within the coming month by coming up with fresh demands of his own. “All these things could have been done within a week. Zanu (PF) needs a week, no more,” Makumbe said. Makumbe wondered what would happen if Mugabe refused to implement the pact in full in 30 days. “There is no clear way forward. When the 30 days come up… they cant simply disengage again. We have cant have five years of MDC pulling out, going back, pulling out, going back,” said the UZ lecturer.