Zuma meets Zim leaders tomorrow

HARARE – South African President Jacob Zuma will tomorrow hold talks with leaders of neighbouring Zimbabwe’s power-sharing government to try to break a deadlock threatening the coalition government, his office said Tuesday.

Zuma is chairman of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) that alongside the Africa Union is a guarantor of a power-sharing agreement signed by President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara last September.

The South African leader’s office said in a statement: "In his capacity as chairperson of SADC, President Zuma will be holding meetings with the leaders of ZANU-PF and the two MDC formations to be briefed on the implementation of the Global Political Agreement (power-sharing agreement).”

Zuma, who arrives in Harare Thursday, will also open Zimbabwe’s annual agricultural show on Friday before flying back to South Africa later the same day.

Mugabe’s office had last week claimed that the South African leader would limit his visit to the agricultural show and not tackle problems related to the power-sharing agreement.

While some political analysts have said that even if Zuma were to discuss the power-sharing pact with Zimbabwe’s political leaders there was little he could achieve in one day and suggested that the South African President would probably use the trip to see for himself the various problems gripping the fragile Harare coalition.

Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara are deadlocked over a myriad of outstanding issues, among them Mugabe’s arbitrary appointment of two top allies to head the central bank and attorney general’s department in violation of the power-sharing agreement that says such appointments should be by consensus.

Other issues include delays in swearing in of provincial governors and Roy Bennett – Tsvangirai’s appointee as deputy minister of agriculture – as well as the continued arrest, conviction and sentencing of legislators from the Premier’s MDC party.

While Tsvangirai and Mutambara have written to SADC over problems in the implementation of the GPA, Mugabe’s ZANU PF party about two weeks ago accused its former opposition foes of reneging on a commitment to urge Western countries to lift sanctions on the party’s senior leaders.

Zuma is considered more sympathetic to Tsvangirai but he will next month step down as SADC chairman with Mugabe ally and Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila assuming the rotating regional chair.

Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara formed an inclusive government last February to try to end Zimbabwe’s multifaceted crisis.

The unity government has done well to stabilise the economy and end inflation that was estimated at more than a trillion percent at the height of the country’s economic meltdown last year.

But analysts remain doubtful about the administration’s long-term effectiveness, citing unending squabbles between ZANU PF and MDC as well as by the coalition government’s inability to secure direct financial support from rich Western nations. – ZimOnline