20100730
allafrica

The country's three political leaders are reported to have agreed to drop several outstanding issues, which have been crippling the coalition government, and to focus on only three related to senior appointments.

According to the weekly Zimbabwe Independent newspaper Morgan Tsvangirai, Robert Mugabe and Arthur Mutambara agreed at a meeting in June to drop everything else and concentrate on resolving the dispute around the appointments of Roy Bennett, Johannes Tomana and Gideon Gono.

Despite the power sharing deal making it clear senior appointments have to be done by consensus among the partners, Mugabe went ahead and unilaterally appointed the Reserve Bank governor Gono and Attorney General Tomana. He has additionally refused to swear in Roy Bennett, the MDC-T choice for Deputy Agriculture Minister, citing a dubious treason trial in which Bennett was acquitted.

The paper says the three principals wrote a letter to South African President Jacob Zuma, the chief facilitator, and advised him on the areas of agreement and disagreement. Mutambara was asked to comment on the letter but told the paper, 'I cannot discuss the contents and details of that communication with the media. Those communications are confidential and we cannot talk about them in public or in the media.'

The response from the Deputy Prime Minister typifies the general attitude of politicians in the country who believe ordinary people have no right to information that will directly affect their lives. The result of this has been the fact that most news stories are based on hearsay and speculation. Then the politicians can criticize the media for its inaccuracies.

Analysts say for a country battling to recover from economic collapse, information on the endless talks around the non functioning unity government is also vital for decision makers.

But MDC-T spokesman Nelson Chamisa refuted the Zimbabwe Independent story and told Newsreel none of the outstanding issues were dropped. He said what had happened was that the principals had agreed on those issues, what was left was to see if they would be implemented. There is however a complete deadlock on Gono, Tomana and Bennett which is why they want SADC to intervene. In addition to this there had been fresh breaches of the GPA by Mugabe after the ZANU PF leader unilaterally appointed judges and ambassadors this year.

This week Zuma dispatched one of his top envoys to Zimbabwe, in yet another attempt to try to kick-start the talks. Former Transport Minister Mac Maharaj arrived Tuesday and met separately with the three party principals the following day. Once again officials were very coy about releasing any information to the media. But it was reported elsewhere that South Africa wanted to bridge the divide between ZANU PF and its partners before a Southern African Development Community summit in Namibia in August.

Meanwhile it's reported Zimbabwe might not even be on the agenda of the SADC summit, if Mugabe and those lobbying for him have their way. While Tsvangirai and the MDC are pushing for Zimbabwe's inclusion as an agenda item Mugabe is said to be leaning on his longtime ally, DRC President Joseph Kabila, who is the current SADC chair. Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba, the incoming chair, also has close links to Mugabe and is not expected to adopt a robust approach to the Zimbabwe crisis.

It remains to be seen if SADC will follow the lead of the recent African Union Summit, which conveniently - for Mugabe - left Zimbabwe off the agenda. If they do, it will be yet another indication that African leaders have little concern for human rights abuses on the continent.