Zimbabwe at crossroads: US envoy

United States (US) ambassador Charles Ray said on Tuesday, as South African leader Jacob Zuma arrived in Harare for talks with President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

Zuma, the Southern African Development Community (SADC)s mediator in Zimbabwe, arrived in Harare yesterday on a mission to prod the Harare parties to complete implementation of their power-sharing agreement including democratic reforms that should lead to fresh elections to choose a new government.

Ray, who was speaking to journalists in the city of Bulawayo, said progress in Zimbabwe depended on full implementation of the power-sharing agreement or global political agreement (GPA) that gave birth to the Harare unity government.

At the moment, Zimbabwe is at a juncture, at a road that it can turn into chaos or turn into the road into recovery, Ray said. The road to recovery is a rough one, it is tough and it all depends on the full implementation of the global political agreement.

The unity government has won plaudits for stabilising the economy to improve the lives of ordinary Zimbabweans. But a dispute between Tsvangirai and Mugabe over how to share executive power, senior appointments and security sector reforms is holding back the administration and threatening to render it ineffective.

The unity governments failure to win financial support from Western powers and multilateral institutions has also crippled its efforts to rebuild an economy shattered by a decade of political strife and acute recession.

Mugabe and Tsvangirai have in recent days hinted they prefer an election to end their power-sharing dispute but analysts say both are not ready for a new vote, while they are fears of a quick return to the political violence and gross human rights abuses witnessed in the 2008 elections.

Under the GPA Zimbabwe should hold fresh elections following the drafting of new constitution to ensure the vote is free and fair.

Zuma is expected to raise the issue of elections with Mugabe and Tsvangirai. The South African President is said to favour a new vote as early as 2011 but he will have to convince especially Mugabe to agree to new electoral framework in the absence of a new constitution that could allow a truly democratic poll.