HARARE – South Africa will today brief regional foreign ministers on the progress of talks to resolve a power-sharing dispute threatening Zimbabwe’s coalition government.
Southern African Development Community (SADC) foreign ministers meet in Mozambique today to coordinate the region’s support for Malawi’s bid for the chair of the African Union.
Pretoria officials said on Wednesday that international relations minister Mait Nkoana-Mashabane will use the occasion to brief her regional colleagues on the dialogue between President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party and the former opposition MDC formations led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his deputy Arthur Mutambara.
South Africa brokered a 2008 power-sharing deal that gave birth to Zimbabwe’s coalition government last February and was last November asked by regional leaders to step in to help resolve a host of disagreements between the Zimbabwean parties and save the unity administration from collapse.
A team of facilitators appointed by President Jacob Zuma to mediate in the Zimbabwean dialogue earlier this week said that the pace of negotiations has been slow but said it was however happy with the progress achieved so far.
Negotiators have to date reached agreement on 16 of the 27 issues tabled for discussion. None of the issues at the core of the power-sharing dispute have yet been resolved.
The 11-month old government has done well to stabilise Zimbabwe’s economy and end inflation that was estimated at more than a trillion percent at the height of the country’s economic meltdown in 2008.
As a result living conditions for ordinary Zimbabweans have greatly improved compared to 12 months ago when the country battled shortages of cash, fuel and every basic survival commodity.
But unending bickering between ZANU PF and MDC as well as the coalition government’s inability to secure direct financial support from rich Western nations have held back the administration’s efforts to rebuild the economy.
The MDC accuses Mugabe of flouting the power-sharing agreement after the veteran leader refused to rescind his unilateral appointment of two of his allies to the key posts of central bank governor and attorney general.
Mugabe has also refused to swear in Tsvangirai ally Roy Bennett as deputy agriculture minister and to appoint members of the MDC as provincial governors.
On its part ZANU PF insists it has done the most to uphold the power-sharing deal and instead accuses the MDC of reneging on promises to campaign for lifting of Western sanctions on Mugabe and his top allies.
– ZimOnline.
