Zimbabwe: Mugabe Softens on Government Impasse

Dumisani Muleya and Wongai Zhangazha

24 March 2011

AN extraordinary cabinet meeting was held at Manhumutapa Building in Harare yesterday to deal with nagging Global Political Agreement (GPA) and Government of National Unity (GNU) issues.

At the meeting President Robert Mugabe climbed down on his recent belligerent political stance, while Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai demanded implementation of agreed issues.

The meeting – which the Zimbabwe Independent first revealed was coming on March 4 – came as Mugabe and Tsvangirai prepared for the critical double Sadc troika summit in Zambia on Thursday next week. Zimbabwe will loom large at the meeting where the contentious elections roadmap issues are expected to take centre stage.

A senior cabinet minister who attended Thursday’s special cabinet meeting described the encounter as “cordial” but “disappointing”. Judging by the fireworks of the cabinet meeting on March 1, where it was decided an extraordinary session would have to be convened to tackle GPA and GNU issues, yesterday’s gathering was calm although pent up tensions and hostilities simmered.

“It was a very disappointing meeting overall because we didn’t come up with any resolutions. All ministers received the paper that was presented in cabinet. We had no time to digest it and research on how we could intelligently respond to it,” the minister said. “It wasn’t going to be fair though to debate such a comprehensive document without first reading it and in a short time.”

Before the meeting, ministers were geared for a fight. Mugabe and his ministers wanted to insist they would not make concessions or implement outstanding GPA issues so long as the sanctions remained. The MDC-T planned to attack Mugabe and Zanu PF for refusal to implement GPA and blatant violations of the agreement.

Prior to the cabinet session, which started at 10am ministers exchanged notes with colleagues on strategy and tactics to be employed at the meeting.

One MDC-T minister told the Independent just before the meeting: “We are going to attack them and expose their hypocrisy. They must also be prepared for more trouble at the double Sadc troika summit next week”.

A Zanu PF minister had noted: “We are going to raise the issue of sanctions and political violence. We have researched and compiled information on the MDC-T’s history of violence, even at Harvest House, and their double standards”.

The MDC-T minister said his party would “go for broke” at the meeting because “the time for sweet talking is over”.

Ministers said the special cabinet session, chaired by Mugabe, ended without a resolution of issues except an agreement to study issues raised before another meeting is held. Mugabe was said to have opened the meeting in an uncharacteristically composed cool manner, pleading for cooperation and an end to political violence. This was seen as a climb down from his aggressive and confrontational stance of late, especially during his anti-sanctions campaign.

“The president told cabinet that we had gathered to ‘discuss issues raised by our colleagues’ and that it was important as leaders to support the Prime Minister’s presentation. He (Mugabe) called for a cordial atmosphere in the meeting and it was respected by everyone,” a minister said.

“He touched on violence saying that he wanted a violent-free society and that it started with us (cabinet ministers), adding that after the meeting the message should be forwarded and cascaded to different party political structures.”

After the introductory remarks by Mugabe, Tsvangirai came in and presented his document in which he touched on the state of the GNU, the minister said.

“The PM’s paper covered key provisions of the GPA which he felt were important and needed immediate implementation,” the minister said.

Tsvangirai covered issues which included the constitution, sanctions and measures, land, equality, national healing, cohesion and unity, respect for national institutions and events, free political activity, rule of law, respect for the constitution and other laws, selective application of the law, freedoms of assembly and association, state organs and institutions, security of persons and prevention of violence and freedom of expression and communication.

Tsvangirai demanded that the government must “recognise the importance of the freedoms of assembly and association in a multi-party democracy and noted that public meetings have to be conducted in a free, peaceful and democratic manner in accordance with the law”.

The GPA parties have largely failed to implement their own agreement and would have to face increasingly impatient Sadc leaders over this next week.

Mugabe and his party Zanu PF are resisting the crafting of an election roadmap, saying the GPA is the roadmap in itself, while Tsvangirai and the MDC-T say there is need to rehash the document to insert clear benchmarks and timelines, as well as signposts, before elections.

The GPA has most of those details. The MDC-N wants parties to come up with a roadmap which captures relevant GPA details.

Sadc resolved last year in Windhoek that Zimbabwe should implement the GPA and pave way for free and fair elections. Zimbabwe is well behind in terms of GPA implementation. Most of the issues, which Tsvangirai highlighted in cabinet yesterday, remained unimplemented.

Sadc leaders in Windhoek “urged the Zimbabwe stakeholders to remain committed to the implementation of the GPA; reiterated its call on the international community to lift all forms of sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe in view of the negative effects they have on Zimbabwe and the Sadc region in general”.

They mandated the Sadc chair, assisted by the chairperson of the organ on politics defence and security, President Rupiah Banda of Zambia and the facilitator of the Zimbabwe political dialogue, South African President Jacob Zuma, to work together to deal with these issues.

The special cabinet agreed that after the debate on Tsvangirai’s presentation, it would have to come up with a firm GPA implementation plan.

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