Several reports are quoting sources who say agreement was reached on peripheral issues like voter registration, the constitution making process and the timeline towards elections. Analysts are already predicting a ‘damp squib’ summit, mainly because ZANU PF keep adding more excuses to their existing refusals to fully implement the 2008 power sharing agreement with the two MDC formations.
It’s being reported Mugabe’s party has said it will resist attempts to deploy a three member SADC monitoring team to help the toothless Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC). It had been agreed to at the last SADC summit in South Africa, but ZANU PF are now claiming the deployment of foreigners will infringe on their ‘sovereignty’.
SADC Heads of State and government will meet in the Angolan capital Luanda, on Wednesday and Thursday and unsurprisingly Zimbabwe is top of the agenda. Pedzisai Ruhanya from the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition told SW Radio Africa, some of the key issues that need to be addressed include security sector reform, political violence, media reforms and purging the electoral body of military and other state agents.
Instead of these issues being the focus, ZANU PF is being accused of creating a side show by trying to have South African President Jacob Zuma removed as the chief facilitator. Mugabe’s party claims Zuma cannot be both facilitator and Chair of the SADC Troika at the same time. The MDC-T however say former mediator Thabo Mbeki was in a similar situation and ZANU PF never objected.
Last week ZANU PF also tried to use a meeting of liberation war movements in Namibia to try and soften the stance that SADC will likely take at the summit. The meeting was attended by the African National Congress of South Africa, Chama Cha Mapinduzi of Tanzania, FRELIMO of Mozambique, MPLA of Angola and SWAPO of Namibia among others. Many analysts however believed this would have little effect on the region.
Post published in: News