No progress on democracy: Tsvangirai

Speaking as South African President Jacob Zuma was preparing to travel to Zimbabwe this week on a mission to prod the Harare parties to speed up reforms, Tsvangirai said the coalition government had failed to uphold basic freedoms or ensure that there will be no recurrence of the gross rights violations and torture of the past decade. We have not yet made the type of progress or democratic reforms which were the very reason for entering into this new administration, Tsvangirai said at the launch of a new report detailing how state security agents regularly harassed, beat up and tortured perceived opponents of Mugabe and his Zanu (PF) party.

Tsvangirai himself a victim of beatings and torture by state agents agreed to enter a unity government with Mugabe under pressure from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and on promises that the administration would implement democratic reforms, including drafting a new constitution that would lead to fresh free and fair elections.

The unity government has won plaudits for stabilising the economy to improve the lives of ordinary Zimbabweans. But it has scored poorly on political and democratic reforms, with the stop-start constitutional reforms way behind schedule, raising fears that the new vote that was initially expected in 2011 might have to be delayed to probably 2012 or 2013. The administration has not moved an inch to reform and restructure the security forces that were behind most of the human rights violations of the past 10 years. There has been some movement on media reforms but no new papers have been licenced while those that were banned remain so.

Farm invasions have continued while there have been increasing reports in recent months that Zanu (PF) militants backed by state security forces have re-launched violence and intimidation in several parts of the country. With Mugabe and Tsvangirais unity government looking headed for paralysis, Zumas office confirmed on Thursday that he would be leaving for Harare to try and press Zimbabwes political parties to stop squabbling and focus on fully implementing their power-sharing deal including speeding up democratic reforms.

Zuma is the SADCs mediator in Zimbabwe and a team of senior officials he appointed to facilitate dialogue between Zanu (PF) and Tsvangirais MDC party have been to Harare on countless occasions but has apparently not been able to make much headway.

All along the President has been dispatching his team to Zimbabwe but he now wants to travel on his own . . . to give impetus to the discussions among the parties . . . He is not travelling to break any deadlock, Vincent Magwenya, Zumas spokesman, told the media last Thursday. Zuma is known to favour a fresh vote as early as next year to end political stalemate in his northern neighbour. But Magwenya insisted it was not Zumas place to tell the Zimbabweans when they should hold elections. The solution will not come from President Zuma . . . It will come from the Zimbabweans themselves, he said.