SADC Rejects Mugabe’s Directive

Financial Gazette (Harare)

Clemence Manyukwe

17 June 2011

REGIONAL leaders have rejected President Robert Mugabe’s directive for the bloc to stop recognising Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) president, Welshman Ncube, as a principal ahead of Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara on grounds that it is in violation of the Global Political Agreement (GPA).

The development has seen Mutambara’s world slowly crumbling, and it appears there is little he can do about it as even a bid by Zanu-PF to prop him has failed.

Prior to the weekend’s Southern African Development Community (SADC) extraordinary summit on Zimbabwe, ZANU-PF told regional leaders that they should only deal with Mutambara to avoid destabilising government. President Mugabe is said to have also discussed the issue with South African President Jacob Zuma at a closed meeting last Friday.

The regional bloc threw out ZANU-PF’s directive and invited Ncube to the summit as a principal while Mutambara’s invitation stipulated that he would attend in his capacity as one of the country’s two deputy premiers.

ZANU-PF is said to have wooed Mutambara after he was dislodged from the helm of the MDC-T and the robotics professor has often made utterances in support of ZANU-PF.

“As a party we only recognise President RG Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara as the three principals to the GPA. We would therefore expect that SADC in its dealings with Zimbabwe work with these three and not substitute Mutambara with Welshman Ncube,” reads part of ZANU-PF position to SADC leaders, which has also been posted on the party’s website.

“By appearing to be recognising Ncube as a principal, SADC may be violating the GPA, which it helped to bring about and should therefore guarantee in word and deed. By recognising Ncube at the Livingstone meeting the Troika effectively compromised the Zimbabwe situation particularly the GPA.”

ZANU-PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo could not comment yesterday saying he was busy.

However, despite an interim court order barring the deputy premier from acting as MDC president, Mutambara is still recognised as a principal by both the MDC-T and ZANU-PF.

Besides the just ended summit declining to recognise Mutambara as a principal, regional leaders also rejected a bid by the deputy premier to add his own two negotiators to the country’s mediation process.

Joubert Mudzumwe and Tsitsi Dangarembga were dispatched to the summit as a follow-up to their own resolution on May 26 that Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga and Moses Mzila-Ndlovu were no longer MDC negotiators.

The unexpected turn of events irked the group, and speculation has been rife that those decisions could be behind Mutambara’s decision to leave South Africa before the start of the summit on Sunday. Mutambara spent most of that day at the Heroes Acre, where the late firebrand politician, Edgar Tekere, was being buried.

In an interview on Monday, Mutambara’s spokesperson, Maxwell Zimuto, said his party was of the view that Tekere’s burial was more important than the SADC extraordinary summit. He added that this was because issues such as the election roadmap had already been agreed.

“In our view, the burial was more important than the SADC summit. That is the view we share with our principal,” said Zimuto.

He added that Mudzumwe and Dangarembga had been seconded to SADC as the group’s representatives, following the decision to replace Misihairabwi and Mzila-Ndlovu, but the selection of new negotiators was yet to be done.

The deputy premier’s spokesperson said he was yet to establish why his colleagues had failed to attend the SADC summit.

However, Dangarembga claimed that she left South Africa when the extraordinary summit was postponed from Saturday to Sunday. She was evasive on her mission to the summit.

Mudzumwe could not be reached for comment.

Last month, when President Mugabe was asked by the Southern Times to respond to claims that he was needlessly protecting Mutambara, the President said they were guided by an unfolding court process.

“This is what Minister Welshman Ncube was saying yesterday. We had quite a long session. We have not refused to recognise Welshman Ncube as president of the party. We are a forum of governors, three principal governors together; established legally and there is a legal bond. And legally it was Mutambara and he himself says firstly, that there was an agreement between him and Welshman Ncube that should there be a change at the congress, that change would not affect the principals and he would continue,” said the ZANU-PF leader.

” . . . We also feel that the change is unfortunate in that he is the man they gave to us, with whom we have signed signatures, we have sown seeds, and the fathering of the GPA was with him. So, to unravel that is an unfortunate thing.

“But if they succeed in their quest to have him dropped, we cannot contest the decision of the court.”

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