/ 27 November 2010

Zuma in bid to break Zimbabwe deadlock

Zuma In Bid To Break Zimbabwe Deadlock

South African President Jacob Zuma on Friday met with leaders in Zimbabwe’s power-sharing government to try to smooth over disputes threatening their troubled coalition.

“We had good consultations. Very successful,” Zuma told journalists after meeting at a Harare hotel with President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the former opposition leader who shares power with the president in an uneasy compromise government.

“There were some small issues. There had been a breakdown of communication between the leadership of the government here. That has been resolved,” Zuma said.

“The meetings [between Mugabe and Tsvangirai] are going to continue. All the issues are going to be discussed and resolved.”

He would not give further details on the meeting, saying he needed to brief the leadership troika of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) regional bloc first.

“We have to report to the troika that will report to the SADC summit and therefore you should not expect us to deviate from reporting to the troika and report to yourselves,” Zuma told journalists.

He returned to South Africa immediately after the meeting.

Neither Mugabe nor Tsvangirai would comment or give details of the meeting.

The visit followed talks Zuma held with the two leaders at a special SADC summit in Namibia last week, and came days after Tsvangirai asked Zimbabwe’s high court to revoke Mugabe’s appointment of provincial governors, saying his rival had filled the positions unilaterally.

The talks were also expected to focus on the timing of new elections, after Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party declared polls would be held around June next year with or without the new constitution that was agreed to in the power-sharing deal.

‘Cure the mischief of the past’
“The key message is let’s have a time-bound account of how the journey to free and fair elections is going to be undertaken,” said Nelson Chamisa, spokesperson for Tsvangirai’s MDC party,

Chamisa stressed “the issues of violence, the involvement of the military in elections and the monitoring and observing of elections” as key points.

“We want monitors six months ahead of the elections in order to cure the mischief of the past,” he said.

Mugabe’s party had said before the meeting that it would seek a decision on continuing the power-sharing arrangement.

“We look forward to breaking the deadlock. There should be a decisive position on whether we should continue with the GPA [global political agreement],” said Zanu-PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo.

“We hope we can break the impasse. We hope that he [Zuma] can decide the road map on elections.”

But none of the leaders would elaborate on the timeline for elections or the future of the unity deal following the meeting.

Mugabe and Tsvangirai formed the power-sharing government last year to ease tensions in the aftermath of a bloody presidential run-off election in 2008 and to mend an economy ravaged by a nearly decade-long crisis.

Under the agreement, the country is expected to hold elections after a new constitution has been adopted.

But the constitution-making process, which has been marred by violence at public outreach meetings, has yet to be completed.

Tension has also been rising in the unity government following disagreements among top government officials and haggling over the allocation of key jobs. – AFP