Zimbabwe’s rival parties on Wednesday postponed a parliamentary debate on constitutional amendments that would pave the way for the formation of a unity government, party officials said.
Both the Zanu-PF and Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said the debate had been postponed to allow negotiators more time to discuss outstanding issues.
Zanu-PF chief whip Joram Gumbo said ”there are some sticky issues which are being raised by other members of the house” and that the negotiators had been summoned to talks by South African mediators.
”The negotiators were summoned by the convener in South Africa to finalise the outstanding issues on the talks,” he added.
”The negotiators are supposed to be coming back on Saturday. Although the Parliament is supposed to re-convene on February 17, it can be recalled for any urgent business.”
MDC chief whip Innocent Gonese said: ”Since the negotiators are somewhere finalising issues related to the constitutional amendment … the motion on the amendments will not be moved today [Wednesday] pending the finalisation of those issues which we feel have to be addressed.”
He said he hoped the discussions would be completed before the February 11 swearing-in of MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai as prime minister.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) last month set a February 5 deadline for Parliament to pass the necessary constitutional amendments to allow implementation of the power-sharing deal signed last September.
On Tuesday, the MDC accused Zanu-PF of backtracking from the SADC mandate after the Zanu-PF negotiators failed to turn up for a meeting. — Sapa-AFP