Peace, economic progress.and deadlock

its people despondent and the brokers of the unity pact are being recalled for arbitration and adjudication over a deadlock threatening to sink the administration. The sense of frustration is almost palpable, writes GIFT PHIRI from Harare.The good news is at least Zimbabwe is at peace. The bad news is that many question how long it will last.

The coalition government brought with it unrealistic expectations, but even the most grounded of observers have become irritated by its lack of progress.

South Africa President Jacob Zuma, whose predecessor Thabo Mbeki brokered the unity deal, has accused Zimbabwes leaders of losing momentum in delivering badly needed reforms and failing to face up to the big decisions needed to bring about change.

Zuma has urged all parties in government to be flexible and urged parties to park some of the festering outstanding issues from the September 2008 pact.

But all is not doom and gloom. The coalition has been credited with halting economic meltdown. Zimbabwes economic decline has been dramatically reversed since the MDC took up all the economic levers in government.

Finance Minister Tendai Biti of the MDC projects economic growth to ramp up to seven per cent this year, from about 4.7 per cent last year.

The coalitions most notable achievement is to have remained intact and standing, according to political commentator Ronald Shumba.

But its most efficient activity has been to reinforce a culture of impunity.

There seems to have been a very democratic distribution of spoils with these latest corruption scandals, you cant say one side is more corrupt than the other; all sides seem to have their snouts in the trough, Shumba says.

In recent weeks, Prime Minister Tsvangirais MDC has been marred by an alleged corruption scandal, whilst President Mugabes Zanu (PF) party stands accused of doing dodgy deals around the rich diamonds mining fields in Manicaland.

Two big political parties sharing power and barely an opposition in Parliament. It doesnt do much for public confidence.

A snap survey by ****The Zimbabwean**** this week reflected this sense of public frustration, with over half the respondents saying the Mugabe-Tsvangirai administration had achieved nothing in its first year in office except stabilise the economy and bring peace. This frustration is running deep among civil servants, who have had to contend with appalling salaries of a little over US$200.

So why have Zimbabwes leaders been so cavalier? Perhaps it is because the institutions that should hold government in check have been tainted over the years.

Perhaps, too, it is because the three most important men in Zimbabwean politics Mugabe, Tsvangirai and his deputy Arthur Mutambara have been able to forge some kind of working relationship, but have left their foot soldiers behind.

Mugabe and Tsvangirai may be running the country, but their parties appear to be running rings around them positioning themselves for the next elections amid intense bickering.

When the two leaders were bundled into a room and pressured to consent to a joint administration last year at a SADC summit in Pretoria, they were signing up to a string of important promises designed to prevent such wholesale violence happening again: land reform; constitutional change; judicial and security sector reform; tackling youth unemployment, and addressing political tensions. Yet progress has been pathetically slow, say critics.

The constitutional review process appears to have ground to a halt, deadlocked by committee inertia and bickering over cash payouts to outreach teams.

There is still no head of an envisaged interim electoral commission, and perhaps most alarming of all, still no head of a human rights commission expected to push forward a tribunal to try people suspected of spearheading the brutal election-related violence.

A new Zimbabwe Media Commission will however be chaired by former State broadcaster Godfrey Majonga with journalism lecturer and former newspaper editor Nqobile Nyathi his deputy. But there has been political horse-trading on the rest of the commissioners, with bona fide candidates dropped to accommodate Zanu (PF) people.

That sense of political inertia is a huge betrayal for people like James Mushonga, who is among hundreds abducted during the run-up to the sham June 27, 2008 poll. Mushonga wants international oversight of any trial that tests impunity and rigorous punishment for those who funded and fomented the violence that claimed over 200 lives in 2008.

For him that can only come at The Hague. He has absolutely no faith in the system here, or the three ministers appointed to handle national healing, reconciliation and intergration.

But he also wants recognition from the leadership that Zimbabwe still hasnt healed. The political tensions, shaped and used by politicians in 2008, still fester, albeit at a low-key level.

But Zimbabweans have an enormous capacity to forgive, and unless that sense of outrage can be harnessed and channelled productively, there are real fears that the opportunity for reform will be lost.