HARARE – The SADC troika will hold a summit this week, in a sign of growing pressure against President Robert Mugabe but analysts said regional leaders would need to press hard the obstinate octogenarian to fully implement terms of last year’s Global Political Agreement (GPA) and save a fragile unity government from collapse.

Zimbabwe’s nine-month-old unity government is rocked by disputes between erstwhile rivals Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Mugabe on how to share executive power and was plunged into crisis after Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party boycotted Cabinet, a decision that may has hastened SADC action.

Last week, the two men and their negotiators met a Southern African Development Community (SADC) ministerial team, which was in the country to review the coalition and there was no doubt it was Tsvangirai who emerged from the meetings more satisfied with the summit decision.

The summit will be held on Thursday in Mozambique and will be chaired by Mozambican President Armando Guebuza and attended by Zambian leader Rupiah Banda and Swaziland’s King Mswati II.

Tsvangirai had travelled around the region two weeks ago, meeting leaders to explain his party’s decision to boycott Cabinet citing Mugabe’s ZANU PF as an unreliable coalition partner.

Troika summit

“I have no doubt SADC is now turning the heat on Mugabe, what he did not want was a summit to deal with Zimbabwe but this is exactly what he has got,” John Makumbe, a political analyst and Mugabe critic said.

“They (SADC) have an opportunity to tell Mugabe to meet his side of the deal or that he will be left on his own, I believe the summit will deliver a strong message to him.”

MDC officials have in the past expressed disquiet and exasperation over SADC for failing to tackle the 85-year-old Mugabe, one of the oldest African leaders.

The convening of the troika summit is seen as acknowledging that much more action is needed to bring Mugabe and ZANU PF to adhere by the spirit of last year’s agreement while securing the MDC’s continued participation in the unity government, whose formation has stopped Zimbabwe’s economic haemorrhaging and political violence. 

But political analysts said SADC would need to lean more on Mugabe to fully meet his party’s side of the political agreement and its February communiqué, which among other things, requires the unity government to deal with the appointment of a central bank governor and attorney general and senior government officials.

Mugabe has of late insisted that he has met all obligations under the power-sharing pact and maintains the MDC should campaign for the lifting of Western sanctions against ZANU PF, including travel restrictions and a freeze on general financial aid to Zimbabwe.

The analysts said Mugabe was likely to dig in for now, especially ahead of his party’s congress next month when ZANU PF would elect a new leadership.

Some concessions

“Mugabe is somehow contemptuous of SADC leaders, that he has made clear through his actions, but at the same time he can not spit in their face because they did help him secure legitimacy through the coalition government at a time of increased pressure for his ouster from the West,” Eldred Masunungure, a political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe said.

“So SADC is likely to wring some concessions from the old man, reminding him that a stable Zimbabwe is better for the region but he is unlikely to give in to all MDC demands because you don’t want to go to congress appearing weak and giving in to your rivals,” he added.

Western diplomats said South African President Jacob Zuma has been working hard behind the scenes to end the current political impasse and in his meeting with Democratic Republic of Congo President and SADC chairman Joseph Kabila last week, discussed Zimbabwe’s political problems at length.

Kabila yesterday met Mugabe for more than five hours as the young Kabila told Mugabe of the region’s fears of instability in the country if the unity deal collapsed.

But it was not clear what the two men discussed as their talks stretched into the evening.

“You need to understand that South Africa is the mediator in Zimbabwe and so they want to see this agreement fully implemented and working,” a Western diplomat who declined to be named, who closely monitors the political events in the region said.

“The reason Mr Kabila is here is because he has sought and received advice and guidance from Pretoria on how to make the GNU work, but at the same time it is really up to Mugabe whether he wants this thing to work or not,” the diplomat said.

Ball in Mugabe’s court

The MDC says Mugabe has refused to swear-in its treasurer general Roy Bennett, one of the few high ranking white party officials who will next week stand trial on terrorism charges that carry a possible death penalty.

The ageing leader says Bennett, a former white commercial farmer whose incarceration two weeks ago triggered the MDC boycott, will only be sworn-in if he is acquitted.

Mugabe and Tsvangirai agreed to swear in five provincial governors from Tsvangirai’s main MDC and another from Arthur Mutambara’s smaller splinter MDC group by September this year, something the veteran leader has reneged on.

Analysts said the MDC was likely to continue with its boycott until Mugabe implemented some parts of the agreement.

“Going back to Cabinet right now without any concessions would seriously undermine the MDC and I don’t think they would do that,” said Masunungure. “But the ball is firmly in Mugabe’s court now and this is what the MDC wanted.”

By Zimonline

Please login to post your comments.

More Featured Articles