HARARE – South African President Jacob Zuma is expected in neighbouring Zimbabwe next Thursday to meet the three leaders of Harare’s power-sharing government to try to resolve several outstanding issues threatening to torpedo the six-month-old administration.Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s office confirmed the planned visit by Zuma who is chairman of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) that alongside the Africa Union is a guarantor of a power-sharing agreement signed by Tsvangirai, President Robert Mugabe and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara last September.
The South African leader is also expected to officially open Zimbabwe’s annual agriculture show on Friday, a day after meeting Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara to discuss the nagging issues arising from last year’s Global Political Agreement (GPA) that gave birth to the unity government.
“I can confirm that we have been notified that President Zuma will be meeting the Principals on Thursday 27 August, 2009,” said Gorden Moyo, minister of state in Tsvangirai’s office. “We are aware that he will be in Harare next week,” Moyo said.
Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara are deadlocked over a myriad of outstanding issues, among them Mugabe’s arbitrary appointment of two top allies to head the central bank and attorney general’s department in violation of the power-sharing agreement that says such appointments should be by consensus.
Other issues include delays in swearing in of provincial governors and Roy Bennett – Tsvangirai’s appointee as deputy minister of agriculture – as well as the continued arrest, conviction and sentencing of legislators from the Premier’s MDC party.
While Tsvangirai and Mutambara have written to SADC over problems in the implementation of the GPA, Mugabe’s ZANU PF party this week accused its former opposition foes of reneging on a commitment to urge Western countries to lift sanctions on the party’s senior leaders.
Zuma is considered more sympathetic to Tsvangirai but he will next month step down as the SADC chairman with Mugabe ally and Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila assuming the rotating regional chair.
Mugabe and Tsvangirai met on Monday this week in desperate attempts to sort out their differences before Zuma’s visit.
Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara formed an inclusive government last February to try to end Zimbabwe’s multifaceted crisis.
* Zimonline
