After meeting on Zimbabwe’s deteriorating political climate, the presidents of South Africa, Zambia and Mozambique issued a damning communique expressing “grave concern” about the country’s increasingly polarized environment, one that human rights groups have attributed to Mugabe’s party, Zanu PF.Mugabe was apoplectic with fury after the damning communique, charging that SADC could not dictate but mediate in the long festering Zimbabwe political stand-off.
The extraordinary summit in Sandton on Sunday was expected to adopt the report. But there are now conflicting statements, with Zanu PF saying the Livingstone report was noted and not adopted and the MDC-T saying the Troika communique was endorsed. Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi said: "The Summit went on very well, very, very well. Summit only noted the outcome of Livingstone, they did not endorse, Summit noted. And as you know in diplomatic parlance, you know what ‘noting' means? It was noted, it was not endorsed."
But Prof Ncube said it was unfortunate and regrettable that some parties had chosen to grand stand and politick by trying to spin and deliberately falsify the facts to suit their goals and egos. "There was the narrative to the report and the decisions made in the report," Ncube said. "What was 'noted' at the SADC summit was the factual foundation or narrative of the Livingstone Troika report. This is because Zanu PF objected to the fact that they were the only ones that perpetrated violence. This however was overtaken by the facilitators report in which both Zanu PF and MDC-T were deemed to have been perpetrators of violence by the facilitators findings. The facilitators report as I said before was itself accepted and endorsed.
That said the decisions of the Livingstone Troika report are not in dispute and were clearly endorsed." Ncube said the SADC summit agreed to a review of the implementation of the GPA, the drawing up of a roadmap to elections, the setting up of a three person panel to monitor with JOMIC the implementation of the GPA and for the parties to desist from violence, intimidation and hate speech.
"Therefore for all practical purposes the decisions of the summit have been endorsed," Ncube said. Ncube said the election roadmap must contain clear signposts. He said the constitution making process must be completed, a report written and negotiated, a referendum passed to Parliament and gazetted to become law.
On electoral reform, Ncube said there is already an amendment agreed to the Electoral Act which must be implemented.
"This will deal with matters such as how to handle electoral violence, the compilation of a new voters roll based on polling stations, auditing the counting and tallying of votes by an independent firm," Ncube said. "Results of the elections must be announced within 5 days."
He said the roadmap must operationalise the Human Rights Bill, which was gazetted on Friday. Ncube said there was an agreement on media reform and implementation. "This includes the appointment of a new Board for the ZBC, a new board of trustees for the Mass Media Trust which includes the Herald newspaper and other state newspapers, the issue of radio and TV licences to new applicants."
Ncube said parties were also urged to strictly apply the the Rule of Law and fully recognise freedom of assembly. The MDC-T said contrary to the assertions by Zanu PF, the Executive Secretary of SADC Tomaz Salomao reiterated, relying on article 2 of the founding document on defence and security that SADC has a mandate to intervene in the internal affairs of a troubled member state such as Zimbabwe.
"We welcome the unequivocal adoption of the idea of a clear roadmap to free and fair elections," the MDC-T said in a statement. "This involves the completion of all the steps necessary for the holding of free and fair election including the finalisation of the constitutional reform process, and the removal of all state-sponsored violence. Therefore this election should be held in accordance with the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections. We are happy that the Summit emphasized on the need of clear timelines to be added to this roadmap, which must be ready for adoption by the summit in August 2011.
"We reiterate that as the MDC, we are and have always been ready for free and fair elections. We are also thrilled and exhilarated by the order given by the Summit that all outstanding issues must be implemented by August 2011 to create an environment of peace, security and free political activity in Zimbabwe."
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