Pic: The octogenarian illegitimate President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe being sworn in after the daylight theft of the March elections he lost to Morgan Tsvangirai
It is not an exaggeration that many Zimbabweans are distraught over the protracted power sharing negotiations taking place in the country following the signing of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) on 15 September 2008.
For many the significance of the GPA was its potential to unlock the doors to social, political and economic stability that have been shut by the ill premised arrogance of a power deluded Zanu PF.
The flicker of hope the signing of the GPA had raised in this regard has been fading with each day that passed and the inclusive transitional government was not formed.
The failure to form the Government is not understood by many impoverished citizens who are more focused on providing for day to day survival necessities.
The problem has been and still is the Zanu PF unwillingness to relinquish power via democratic means.
Having raped the electoral process and refused to uphold the outcome of the March 29 elections Zanu PF has ever since that demoralising defeat in the Presidential election been obsessed in finding gaps to exploit and reassert itself as the ruling party despite relentless international pressure on it to uphold national, regional continental and global democratic conventions to which the country is a signatory.
The SADC and AU have bent backwards too far by allowing Mugabe and Zanu PF to negotiate their political relevance in the country after the lost elections.
The reason is not because the AU and SADC Heads of State are sycophantically supportive of Zanu PF Pan Africanism but rather because they are afraid.
They are cowards all of them with very few exceptions. Most of the political heavyweights in Africa are in office because they rigged their way to power and have no moral high ground on which to compel Mugabe to behave otherwise.
In addition to that fear, most of these leaders that disenfranchised and politically abused Zimbabweans look up to for support are themselves presiding over ailing economies underpinned by rampant corruption and propped by the military establishments they have corrupted into defending individuals rather than systems of governance.
There is not a single African country that is not ceased with the political refugees and asylum seekers problem that bedevils Africa. Not even the impoverished Zimbabwe and Somalia or the strife torn Sudan and DRC.
The MDC appears to have finally realised that to wrestle power from intransigent Mugabe they need to match his devious brand of politics with unorthodox politicking of their own at the same time they maintain global pressure on his rogue regime without turning the people’s party into a rogue political institution.
That is why the party agreed to participate in the SADC mediated process to address the political impasse in the country albeit reluctantly as it had won elections but the win was rendered of no consequence by the intervention of Warlord politicking by Mugabe and his militia.
After studying Zanu PF procrastination and diversionary tactics to avoid the inclusive government the MDC has resolved to go for brook and take Zanu PF and its coterie of cowardly sympathisers in Sadc and Africa at large head on.
MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai told the timid SADC Heads of State they were COWARDS straight into their face after they threw their political weight behind the octogenarian Zanu PF leader Mugabe by reducing wide ranging Ministerial allotment disputes and other bottlenecking issues to the expeditious implementation of the GPA to a dispute over management of the Home Affairs Ministry and legislation of a Constitutional Amendment necessary to formalise and legitimise the GPA.
None of the cowardly SADC Heads of State were impressed by the uncomplimentary verdict but they lacked the guts to stand up to Tsvangirai and voice their misgivings over the uncomplimentary remark.
Instead they chose to go behind the toothless bulldog that SADC mediator Thabo Mbeki now is after he was dishonourably forced to relinquish the South African presidency by a threatened vote of no confidence from his ANC sponsors, to bark their discontent over the remark.
This was an afterthought reaction after MDC Secretary General Hon Tendai Biti had reinforced the uncomplimentary remark and declared the hopeless SADC resolution ordering co-management of a Government Ministry a nullity.
Overzealous and compromised as well as fatally wounded Thabo Mbeki responded to two accusations on half a page accusation by the MDC with a 10 page rigmarole wherein he accused Tsvangirai and the MDC of puppetry, dereliction of leadership responsibility, disrespect of Sadc leadership and prevarication in negotiations for power sharing.
Thabo Mbeki is in an invidious position of his own making. He knows how compromised he is to Zanu PF and how disdainful he is towards Morgan Tsvangirai to be able to side with him even where he and his MDC party may clearly have an irrefutable point.
His political clout has been severely reduced after he was forced to resign the South African Presidency by his very own sponsoring ANC party yet he decided to remain SADC mediator in chief in Zimbabwe.
If he was found unsuitable to lead his own people in South Africa SADC, AU and all those behind his continued stay as mediator on Zimbabwe are missing the point big time.
What is good for the goose must also be good for the gander and conversely what is bad for the goose must also be bad for the gander.
Thabo Mbeki has voluntarily accepted he was no longer relevant in South Africa’s political leadership after the party that sponsored his election decided he was bad for its image. In Zimbabwe however the Party that justifies his mediatory role has determined he is equally bad for Zimbabwean political impasse settlement but he has decided to hang on the role because as he puts it his SADC sponsors have not expressed displeasure about how he has executed his role thus far.
He is wrong. The only customers he was asked to serve by his sponsors Mugabe and Tsvangirai are no longer equally satisfied with his service and he must admit that to his employers or face the embarrassment of being asked for an explanation when one of the customers refuses to pay citing that he was not served anything as Mbeki tipped his order in the dustbin which must pay him.
Mbeki’s incompatibility with the leaders of the parties he has been tasked to bring together aside, he will not achieve the ultimate statesmanship he wants to prove himself to be in Zimbabwe that he failed to prove to the South Africans.
The agreement on CA No 19 is by no means a measure of his suitability to mediate the Zimbabwe political impasse to a logical conclusion.
Rather it is a political snare he and his favoured Zanu PF and its despotic leader Mugabe have been entangled in by the MDC they loathe.
Mugabe will have limited options to decline the Constitutional Amendment without irking the SADC leadership he profoundly thanked for determining that he must be allowed to co-manage the Home Affairs Ministry with the MDC thereby increasing his Ministerial allotment from 15 agreed in the GPA to 16 if we are to believe that the allotment of the other 30 Ministries had been resolved, which is not supported by MDC.
The major catch though is how CA No 19 will be steered through Parliament by whoever is given the responsibility to do so unless Zanu PF makes irreversible concessions on sticking issues surrounding Ministerial allotments.
If Mugabe remains pedantic and refuses to equitably share the Ministerial portfolios with Tsvangirai, the MDC will block passage of CA No 19.
Mugabe will remain an illegitimate President and the economic and social woes facing the country will continue unabated.
Before SADC can expect MDC to support the passage of CA No 19 into law they must be ready to ensure that MDC demands for equitable distribution of Ministerial portfolios has been guaranteed, the Provincial Governors appointments Mugabe made have been rescinded, the extension of Dr Gono’s term as Reserve Bank Governor by Mugabe is equally nullified, the Composition and role of the National Security Council has been defined and reduced to an Act of Parliament, the criteria for appointments to all Statutory positions including Military Commanders, Permanent Secretaries, Ambassadors, Heads of Parastatals, Heads of Standing State Commissions and any other key state appointments will be reduced to a formula that is congruent to the formula used in determining the number of portfolios each party to the GPA was allocated.
This will be awesome for many established Zanu PF ensconced in powerful State positions and they will not go down without a fight.
If Mugabe agrees the formula with Tsvangirai, the likelihood of Zanu PF opposing passage of CA No 19 is as high as the likelihood of MDC opposing passage of the same legislation if the concessions are not made.
Mugabe has the option to try and drive the implementation process individually relying on backroom advice from Zanu PF and Mbeki and cause a stalemate and remain illegitimate and hamstrung by the sanctions he currently alleges are restraining him from managing the economy and more of them in future in response to the political stalemate.
Alternatively he can choose to behave Stately for once and in the interest of the people he always brags he will die to protect as long as they rally behind him, and fall back on the GPA at Article XX clause 20(1) (3) (j) which states that President Mugabe;
“Shall, pursuant to this Agreement, appoint the Prime Minister pending the enactment of the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment no.19 as agreed by the Parties;” [my emphasis].
His party has already endorsed that position and by proclamation there from he can appoint Morgan Tsvangirai as interim Prime Minister and Prof Arthur Mutambara as his Interim Deputy and task the two to steer CA No 19 passage through Parliament.
Alternatively the Socrates Professor Arthur Mutambara can grab the “indecisive and political midget” dragging his feet while the country bleeds by the collar and drag him to Mugabe’s Office the GPA in his right hand and read out the above clause and demand immediate action from the octogenarian despot masquerading as our president and hey he could be Deputy Prime Minister forthwith.
Whichever way Mugabe and Zanu PF will have to give in on power demands from the MDC or they will preside over the same problems that have dogged them for the past 8 years with no solution appearing to be crystallising.
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