SOUTH AFRICAN president Thabo Mbeki arrived in Zimbabwe yesterday to resuscitate the country’s deadlocked powersharing talks.
Mr Mbeki’s arrival comes amid reports that the opposition is willing to sign an agreement which would enable it to secure the powerful ministry of home affairs.
The powersharing talks have been on the verge of collapse for the past three weeks because the three parties cannot agree on which ministries each should control in a unity government.
In what many believe is his final chance to broker a deal as mediator, Mr Mbeki is scheduled to meet President Robert Mugabe of Zanu-PF, Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of opposition party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and Arthur Mutambara, leader of a breakaway MDC faction faction during his visit.
MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said the party welcomed Mr Mbeki’s arrival and expected him to play “the simple but important role of deflating the current impasse in the negotiations”.
He added: “He should persuade Zanu-PF to abandon their meaningless hardline stance . . . the people of Zimbabwe are suffering and they need a ‘pain-stop’ to come out of these talks.”
Last month during a regional summit in South Africa, Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai had reportedly agreed a deal in which Mr Tsvangirai would become prime minister and Mr Mugabe would retain his position as president. However, negotiations broke down over the division of the ministries, with Mr Tsvangirai unhappy that the opposition was being given control of ministries that deal only with the economy.
Mr Mugabe wants to retain control over the army and the police, to enable the ruling party to protect him and senior party members from prosecution over human rights violation linked to the disputed presidential election.
The MDC claims that more than 200 of its members were murdered by Zanu-PF militias in the three months leading up to the June 27th presidential run-off, which was won by Mr Mugabe following the withdrawal of Mr Tsvangirai from the contest in protest at the violence. Zanu-PF has accused the MDC of exaggerating the violence and being responsible for it in some instances.
Prior to Mr Mbeki’s visit South Africa’s Mail Guardian newspaper reported an unnamed opposition official saying that Mr Tsvangirai would sign a deal if he was given control over the home affairs ministry. It is one of the most powerful ministries because it controls the police force.
“We want that post so that we can arrest the war veterans and the militias that go around beating up people. If Mugabe retains that post, we are in trouble [and] the violence will continue, so we won’t sign,” the official said.
Since the talks stalled last month, Mr Mugabe has indicated he is ready to form a government alone if the MDC refuses to sign what is already on the table.
Over the weekend Mr Tsvangirai said he would rather take Mr Mugabe on again in fresh elections than accept a deal in which there was no real powersharing.