Interviewed last week by Namibia's state-run New Era newspaper, Zindoga openly endorsed Zuma's role in Zimbabwe's fractious politics. Zuma has been directly attacked by President Robert Mugabe, who recently asked SADC to remove him. Mugabe has now refused to work with Zuma's mediation team, claiming they were biased in favour of the MDC-T led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
The state media last weekend went further and suggested there was a sinister plot by Zuma and US President Barrack Obama to oust the long-time dictator. However, Zindoga openly differed with her colleagues.
"Our neighbour South Africa, supported by the SADC leadership, has done a tremendous job in its facilitation role…President Zuma and the entire SADC leadership have played a critical role in Zimbabwe's nation-building efforts," Zindoga said.
"Both Zimbabwe's principals to the GPA (Mugabe and Tsvangirai) and the SADC leadership are happy with President Zuma's mediation efforts."
Mugabe has been in open contempt of Zuma ever since the South African president began putting pressure on Mugabe to abandon political violence and embrace the reforms he promised as part of the 2008 Global Political Agreement.
Last weekend, the Zanu (PF)-controlled Sunday Mail attacked Zuma for his alleged "back-door communication with the US president in support of the MDC-T, which is know to be supported by the US government". The paper published what it claimed were transcripts of a leaked letter from Tsvangirai to Obama, obtained through the whistleblower website Wikileaks.
Tsvangirai recently affirmed his confidence in Zuma's mediation.
Political analyst and Zimbabwe Media Centre Director Ernest Mudzengi told The Zimbabwean that Zanu (PF)'s propaganda onslaught against SADC and Zuma was meant to "frustrate progress in the democratization of Zimbabwe".
"What Zanu (PF) is doing with propaganda is that they are continuing their strategy of undermining the GPA in order to mislead the international community," Mudzengi said.
He said this was meant to create "confusion designed to retard momentum on implementation of the GPA".
Post published in: News