Zuma in Last-Ditch Talks

Financial Gazette (Harare)

Clemence Manyukwe

29 April 2011

SOUTH African President Jacob Zuma’s facilitation team is next week scheduled to meet with representatives of the political parties in the inclusive government to mend rifts ahead of an extraordinary Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit later next month.

Zuma’s team was said to be trying to iron out differences between the three political parties constituting the inclusive government, whose bickering has angered regional leaders who expressed their impatience over the non-implementation of resolutions agreed at previous SADC summits to heal escalating hostilities between the parties.

The meeting by the facilitation team appeared to be a last ditch effort to resolve the stalemate in the coalition government.

On Tuesday, Zuma’s international relations advisor, Lindiwe Zulu, confirmed that the parties would meet with facilitators in South Africa to thrash out a number of issues amid mounting pressure for partners in the inclusive government to find common grou-nd.

“It would be a workshop to find ways of resolving issues,” said Zulu.

She could not comment further saying she was out of South Africa.

Apart from being deadlocked on the long outstanding issues in the Global Political Agreement (GPA), the document that gave birth to the inclusive government, the parties last week reached an impasse over a proposed roadmap SADC wants used in the next polls.

President Robert Mugabe’s party came out bruised from the SADC Troika summit held in Livingstone, Zambia last month as political winds in the region appeared to blow in a different direction after what appeared to be a damning report on ZANU-PF.

Zuma had tabled a report before the Troika in which he urged SADC to intensify efforts to resolve the country’s political and economic crisis, warning that the situation could spiral out of control, with the potential of a far worse crisis than that of 2008, which spurred the African Union and SADC to intervene, culminating in the formation of the three-party inclusive government in February 2009.

Besides a rebuke from Zuma, the Troika also condemned the political environment that it said was characterised by the resurgence of violence, arrests, intimidation, hate speech, harassment and other actions that it said contradicted the letter and spirit of the GPA.

It resolved that all parties should implement all the provisions of the GPA and create a conducive environment for peace, security, and free political activity, paving the way for credible polls.

The MDC-T lead negotiator, who is also the party’s secretary general, Tendai Biti, on Tuesday said in their recent meetings, parties had stressed the need for the other 24 agreed GPA issues to be implemented immediately.

He added that if that was not immediately done, next week’s meeting would also come up with mechanisms on how the agreed issues should be enforced.

“We agreed on that as negotiators in January 2010 and the principals agreed on them in June 2010. If they are not implemented, our meeting in the first week of May would come up with what should be done,” said Biti.

Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga, a negotiator with the other MDC formation, confirmed that a meeting had been scheduled with Zuma’s facilitation team. The meeting was meant to break the ice on a number of outstanding issues between the three political parties, she said.

ZANU-PF’s key negotiator, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, could not be immediately contacted for comment.

The 24 agreed positions that have not yet seen the light of day include freeing of the airwaves, mechanisms for declaring national heroes and the constitution of a National Economic Council among other issues.

Diplomatic sources claimed this week the Zuma facilitation team wanted to use the May 6 meeting in Johannesburg to find common ground before the next SADC summit tentatively set for Maputo, Mozam-bique.

“After producing such a damning report, he wants to maintain the momentum. He can’t afford to go to the summit without an agreed roadmap or a resolution to the outstanding issues,” said an African diplomat accredited to Harare.

Although, ZANU-PF had issued statements defying resolutions arrived at by the SADC Troika, President Mugabe in his independence speech last week staged a major climb-down, saying government and his party would cooperate with SADC.

“During the course of 2010, the Global Political Agreement, with missed targets here and there, and outright misunderstanding on others, continued to be implemented. In its various facets, it laid the firm foundation for the prevailing political and macroeconomic stability in the country,” said President Mugabe.

“I am happy to report that the GPA principals will continue to do their best to give this country, our country, the political and socio-economic direction it needs to take.”

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