HARARE South African President Jacob Zuma has constituted a new three-person facilitation support team to work on the Zimbabwean unity government negotiations, replacing former president Thabo Mbekis team that has been handling the process it was announced on Wednesday.“The Presidents political adviser Charles Nqakula leads the team, working with special envoy Mac Maharaj and international relations adviser Lindiwe Zulu,” Zuma’s spokesman Vincent Magwenya said in a statement last week, adding that the delegation would visit Zimbabwe at a date to be announced.
“The facilitation team will soon engage with the parties as emissaries of the President, and report back to President Zuma. The dates of their visit to Harare, Zimbabwe, have not been finalised.”
The appointment of a new facilitation team completes the removal of Mbeki and his envoys since Zuma assumed the facilitators role at last months Southern African Development Community (SADC) defence and security organ summit in Maputo.
Since the start of the inter-party negotiations between President Robert Mugabes Zanu (PF) party and the MDC formations, Mbeki has been accused of adopting a softly-softly approach towards Mugabe.
The MDC has on several occasions requested that Mbeki be relieved of his mediation role in the Zimbabwean crisis.
The Maputo summit ordered Zimbabwes political leaders to engage in dialogue within 15 days to resolve all outstanding issues in the implementation of last years power-sharing agreement.
But the Zimbabwean parties who have missed the SADC deadline have said the timeline is flexible, with the talks that began last Monday expected to run for a couple of days before negotiators present recommendations or suggested solutions to the three party leaders.
Post published in: News