Zim power sharing deal proposed
2008-04-23 15:47
Special Report
Four Chinese men face deportation from Zimbabwe after they were arrested for killing more than 40 tortoises for meat, a report says.
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 - Southern African leaders should broker a deal for a transitional unity government as a way around the post-electoral political impasse gripping Zimbabwe, the state media suggested on Wednesday.
In an opinion article in the government mouthpiece, The Herald, a columnist proposed that SADC, a 14-nation southern African bloc that has been mediating in the Zimbabwe crisis, take steps to bring the opposition and ruling Zanu-PF parties together in a transitional power-sharing deal.
"Holding a free and fair election run-off in the immediate term is literally impossible" because the country's political dynamics is distorted and the economic environment is not conducive, wrote Obediah Mukura Mazombwe.
"The most viable and safest way forward is for the SADC to mediate negotiations for a transitional government of national unity," said Mazombwe.
He suggested the unity government could organise a new round of free and fair elections given that last month's elections did not produce an outright winner.
The new government could also urge the lifting of Western-imposed sanctions targeted at President Robert Mugabe and his aides.
"Accordingly, it stands to reason that the transitional government of national unity, negotiated by the two leading contending parties, under mediation of SADC, supported by the international community, should be led by the incumbent president."
Mugabe's Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said that Mazombwe's article did not represent official thinking.
"He is writing for himself. It confirms that it (the paper) is a market place of ideas. It doesn't represent Zanu-PF position or the government position," he said.
"Our position is very clear. We were approached for a government of national unity and we rejected that discussion (because) our policies are so diametrically opposed."
- AFP