Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe can expect to come under growing behind-the-scenes pressure to engage with his opponents despite escaping public censure from his peers, analysts said on Friday.
Leaders of a 14-member regional bloc held off from criticising the veteran president over the political and economic crisis on their doorstep at a summit on Thursday, issuing a joint statement whose most headline-grabbing item was a call for the lifting of Western sanctions.
But analysts and summit participants said it would be a mistake to assume Mugabe had got off lightly from Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders and the 83-year-old could not simply blank mediation calls as in the past.
”It’s quite clear that the SADC did communicate to Mugabe they were unhappy with his undemocratic tendencies and clampdown on the opposition,” said Chris Maroleng, an analyst at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria.
”In essence, they told him he should begin to create an enabling atmosphere for dialogue.”
Growing unease within the ranks of Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party and signs of a more unified opposition following the recent arrest and assaults of their leaders meant things were different this time, said Maroleng.
”I think that as a result of the pressure inside Zanu-PF and the opposition moving towards a unified position and of course the economy … Mugabe is slowly being pushed into a corner.”
A Tanzanian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the final communique had been watered down after protests by Mugabe, who has sought to lay the blame for his country’s woes at the doors of the West.
Takura Zhangazha, a Harare-based analyst, said the SADC leaders had been keen to distance themselves from Mugabe’s Western critics but would have left him in no doubt about their unhappiness over the crisis in Zimbabwe, where inflation is now at 1 730% and unemployment at 80%.
”Behind closed doors they were obviously candid with him concerning the problems in Zimbabwe and how they are now affecting others,” Zhangazha said.
”The heads of states’ public statement was just made as they did not want to be seen as just parroting the European Union and the United States public stance.”
Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) appeared unimpressed by events in Dar es Salaam.
”I am not disappointed because I was not expecting anything from the summit,” said MDC secretary general Tendai Biti.
He said the appointment of South African President Thabo Mbeki as a mediator between government and opposition was largely a red herring, although the party was willing to meet him.
Mbeki, who has been blamed for his quiet diplomacy approach to Zimbabwe, has mediated in the past but the opposition says nothing much has come out of it.
”It’s not the first time that President Mbeki has been appointed to mediate and we wonder what is different now … Even if you have dialogue tomorrow, how does that reduce inflation from 1 730% to, say, t%, or reduce an unemployment rate of 80%,” said Biti.
Maroleng questioned whether Mbeki would find time for ”robust engagement” with Mugabe given the ongoing leadership battle within his own African National Congress movement.
However, the South African president would be ”looking to his legacy” as he approaches retirement in 2009 and is aware that resolving the Zimbabwe crisis would be a significant feather in his cap.
”In essence, the context is very different from last time,” he added.
Bill Saidi, a Harare-based commentator, agreed the opposition should not feel discouraged.
”Mbeki will also be under pressure from his own ANC and the Congress of South African Trade Unions,” he said.
”Behind the scenes I think SADC leaders told him what they think, but they do not want to appear as if they have lost the war to the West by coming out strongly against Mugabe. At the end of the day, none of the SADC leaders would want to see Zimbabwe go down the drain.” — Sapa-AFP