New report highlights Mugabes contempt for GNU

Titled The Hard Road to Reform, the report was released in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, where a DVD showing Mugabes contempt for the SADC-prescribed inclusive government was also shown to corroborate the 52-page document.

In part, the report states that since the formation of Zimbabwes unity government in February 2009, the politics of the country has been convulsed with a recurring set of problems, although it has allowed for a certain political and economic stabilisation.

The agreement, with its attendant Inclusive Government, was set up to establish the conditions for a free and fair election. However, it was always clear that, in a more determinate sense, it would provide the site for intense struggles over the state between the contending parties, with Zanu PF always in an advantageous position because of its control of the coercive arms of the state, reads the report in part.

It is thus not surprising that the Mugabe regime has used its control of the police, security and military sectors to contain the constrained promise of the GPA to open up democratic spaces. It is also clear that both MDCs have made strategic mistakes that have added to the already difficult challenges that confronted them at the outset of the process. Moreover the problems of the GPA have, on occasion, been compounded by the different roles of SADC and the West.

The report sets out to think through the politics of the last two years in Zimbabwe, setting out the challenges that have had to be confronted, but also noting the opportunities it has provided, and the possibilities for the near future.

In its five steps on the way forward, the SPT suggests that the two MDCs that form the inclusive government with Zanu PF should join hands with civil rights movements to heighten lobbying within SADC and the AU, which will ensure that the recent resolutions by the regional blocs troika summit in Livingstone, Zambia are enforced as fully as possible.

Efforts must be made to draw Zanu PFs international allies, particularly the Chinese government, into a more constructive dialogue over its continued support for authoritarian politics in Zimbabwe, adds the report.

Zimbabwe civil rights groups must mobilise civil society in the region into more extended cooperation in order to sustain the pressure on SADC and the AU, continuous and up to date monitoring of the situation in Zimbabwe.

Despite his outrage at the SADC for breaking ranks with him and ordering his party to stop a crackdown on political opponents, the SPT still believes that it will be highly unlikely for Mugabe to simply ignore the regional blocs resolution.

However, if they (Zanu PF) decide to follow such a course and call for an early election without SADC approval, then the democratic forces in Zimbabwe must unite in a boycott of such an election and mobilise a campaign for a global isolation of the regime.