Speaking in Gaborone last week during a visit to Botswana by Mauritian Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam, Khama said Southern African Development Community leaders should “work hard” to ensure parties to Zimbabwe’s power-sharing pact stick to their part of the bargain.
He spoke as embattled leader Robert Mugabe embarked on another charm offensive to rally the support of former liberation movement colleagues.
SADC leaders converge in Luanda this week to discuss various issues affecting the region, including the political impasses in Madagascar and Zimbabwe. They will also study a progress report by a regional committee of ministers of justice on an exercise to review the mandate of the SADC Tribunal.
“Coming to another item on the SADC agenda, I am sure we will work hard together with others in the region to ensure free and fair elections in Zimbabwe when the GPA arrangement ceases,” Khama said.
One of Mugabe’s fiercest critics, Khama has often broken ranks with other regional leaders on to how to deal with Zimbabwe’s long-running political crisis. He has advocated for a tougher regional stance to rein in Mugabe.
Khama spoke as the cornered Mugabe last week desperately sought to win over increasingly irritated SADC colleagues.
Stung by unprecedented criticism from SADC in recent months, the aging despot rushed to Namibia for a so-called summit of former liberation movements whose main objective was, according to state media reports, to “to take stock of what has happened and consider how best to thwart such misguided thinking by former colonialists”.
But political observers said the real purpose of the meeting was a diplomatic offensive by Mugabe to placate SADC leaders in the wake of harsh criticism against his Zanu (PF) party for its violent conduct.
“This was obviously all part of a damage control exercise by a wounded Mugabe to galvanise support for his party ahead of the SADC summit in Angola,” said political commentator Donald Porusingazi.
Post published in: News