Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe said power-sharing negotiations with the opposition were still on track on Wednesday, shortly before meeting the talks mediator, South African President Thabo Mbeki.
“I understand the talks are going on well and I shall hear today from President Mbeki when he comes,” said Mugabe.
“We are still negotiating, we want to succeed, and negotiations are negotiations of course, they are different from gambling,” Mugabe told guests at a central bank function to announce a new monetary policy.
“We would like to see the speedy conclusion of the talks … and successful outcome so that we can focus in the future our attention around our economy,” Mugabe said.
“We want to see a turnaround for our economy, we want to see a turnaround on our political front,” said Mugabe, who expressed his “total commitment” to a successful conclusion of the talks, being held at a secret location in the Pretoria area.
But he warned that in such negotiations, “there is no winner or loser. Things are not easy all the time.”
Mugabe also said he was prepared to impose tough emergency measures against businesses he accused of profiteering and fuelling inflation, now running at a record 2,2-million percent.
“Businesspeople … don’t drive us further than you have done in the past,” Mugabe said. “If you drive us more we will impose emergency measures and we don’t want to place our country in a situation of emergency rules, they can be tough rules,” he warned.
Mbeki was due to fly into Harare to meet Mugabe later on Wednesday.
The South African president met Mugabe’s rival, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, in Pretoria on Tuesday after the negotiations adjourned amid opposition suggestions they had reached an impasse.
Mbeki insisted the talks had not concluded, adding that a few days’ adjournment would give both sides the opportunity to return to Harare to consult with their parties.
Tsvangirai and 84-year-old Mugabe signed an accord on July 21 to begin talks on sharing power after a months-long election dispute.
While Tsvangirai believes his victory in the first round of a presidential election in March should give him the right to the lion’s share of power, sources in his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) say Mugabe’s negotiators are so far only offering him the chance to become one of several vice-presidents.
Meanwhile, African National Congress president Jacob Zuma on Wednesday called for a compromise between the leaders of Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF and the MDC to resolve the crisis in their country.
“The leadership on both sides should realise that negotiations are a matter of give-and-take and of compromise,” visiting Zuma told reporters.
“Zimbabwe will be back on its feet,” he said on an optimistic note.
Zuma, who arrived in Maputo late on Tuesday, said the current stalemate in negotiations between the two parties could be broken by “facilitators and the mediators [who] look at the issues”. — AFP