MDC pins hope on SADC
2009-10-27 16:00
Special Report
Zimbabwe's energy minister has warned the country risks losing electricity imports from its major supplier if it fails to pay a $90m debt to Mozambique's Hydro Cahora Bassa dam.
A dusty road leads to the village of Wedza, where veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war eke out a meagre living on their farm cooperative, which after a promising start now brings only despair.
Harare - Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC party hopes that Zimbabwe's neighbours would this week break a deadlock threatening its power-sharing deal with President Robert Mugabe, a top party official said on Tuesday.
Tsvangirai and Mugabe formed a power-sharing government in February to try to end a decade-long crisis, but are still fighting a low-intensity political battle ahead of an expected democratic election in about two years.
Their fragile coalition lurched into a crisis earlier this month when the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said it would stop attending cabinet meetings in protest against the arrest of one of its senior officials and Mugabe's refusal fully to implement the power-sharing pact.
MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa said a mediation team from the 15-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) visiting Harare on Thursday had a political obligation to put pressure on Mugabe's ZANU-PF party to honour all aspects of the agreement.
Thaw the impasse
The crisis deepened on Monday after a stalemate at the first meeting between Mugabe and Tsvangirai since the MDC started boycotting the unity government on October 16.
"We are hoping that the troika will, in some way, thaw the impasse. It is our expectation that we will be helped by our guarantors," Chamisa said at a news conference.
"If the meeting fails to break the deadlock, we hope there will be a full (SADC) summit. If that fails, then the only option will be a free and fair election under international supervision."
Chamisa said the MDC and Zanu were "poles apart" on the appointment of some senior government officials, including provincial governors, the attorney-general and head of the central bank, and on media and constitutional reforms.
Zanu - PF had no respect for the rule of law, and its supporters were still invading white-owned commercial farms, he said.
No viable alternative strategies
Chamisa said Zanu-PF militants had also embarked on an intimidation campaign against MDC structures, and one party worker told the conference some armed men had tried but failed to kidnap her in central Harare on Tuesday.
"In our own forensic audit, we have only implemented a quarter of the global political agreement...and there is a danger that Zanu-PF may want to reverse some of progress that we have achieved," he added.
Political analysts say although the coalition has been shaken by the MDC boycott, a complete collapse still looks unlikely because both parties have no viable alternative strategies at the moment.
On his part, Mugabe has shrugged off the former opposition's boycott of Zimbabwe's unity government, saying he has fulfilled the power-sharing agreement and would not yield to any pressure to make concessions.
The veteran Zimbabwean president, 85 and in power since independence from Britain in 1980, says the MDC must campaign for the removal of Western sanctions against his Zanu-PF and for an end to a propaganda campaign by MDC supporters abroad.
- Reuters