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Zuma calls for quick end to crisis

The head of South Africa’s ruling party and favorite to win next year’s presidential election, Jacob Zuma, called on Tuesday for Zimbabwe’s rival leaders to implement a power-sharing package for the sake of the country.

Speaking after discussing the crisis in Zimbabwe on Tuesday with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Zuma said: “I think we share the same views that a quicker solution in Zimbabwe is desirable for the sake of the Zimbabwean people and the country.”

“We also agreed that the Zimbabwean leaders should be urged to complete the package which is already on the table so that it is implemented for the sake of the Zimbawean people,” he said.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his Morgan Tsvangirai on Sept. 15 agreed on a power-sharing accord that divides the government ministries among them and would keep 84-year-old Mugabe as president and make Tsvangirai the prime minister.

However, negotiations to break a five-week deadlock to form a unity government were postponed on Monday after Tsvangirai refused to go to Swaziland for a meeting with Mugabe and four other regional leaders, saying he did not believe Mugabe’s side was negotiating in good faith.

Washington has threatened new sanctions against Zimbabwe if Mugabe does not respect the Sept. 15 agreement.

Tsvangirai has not been granted a full passport for nearly a year and is only allowed to travel on emergency travel documents valid for a single trip.

Zimbabwe’s opposition warned on Tuesday that Tsvangirai might steer clear of another regional summit designed to save the power-sharing accord.

Movement for Democratic Change spokesman Nelson Chamisa said that Tsvangirai could not yet confirm if he would attend new talks between the rivals in Harare on Monday.

Fresh elections would be a final option if the deal collapsed but the party was committed to making the agreement to work, Chamisa said.

“We really want this deal to work,” he said. “It only becomes inevitable for elections when the deal has collapsed, then we can talk of elections but now we are committed to this deal.”

“Elections are the last resort and this will be a fall back position, when everything has been tried and done,” Chamisa said.

Under the power-sharing deal, Mugabe is to remain as president while Tsvangirai takes the new post of prime minister.

But talks are stalled over control of powerful ministries — particularly home affairs, which oversees the police force that is accused of widespread human rights abuses.

The government mouthpiece Herald newspaper accused Tsvangirai of trying to undermine the talks, saying: “The demands he has been making are unreasonable.”

“The prevailing situation of endless talks bodes well for Tsvangirai’s agenda of working towards state paralysis. This fits well with the West’s long-desired collapse that would see them install a puppet regime to serve their interest,” the Herald said.

However, a top UN envoy said he still believed the deal would succeed.

“Both sides know by now that there is no other way but to sit down and reach an agreement,” UN Undersecretary for Political Affairs Haile Menkerios said.

“There have been other groups [that] have been at war with each other in the past but ended up finding a solution, so there is reason to believe that such agreements can work even here,” he said.

Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe, who has ruled since independence from Britain in 1980, in a first-round presidential vote in March, when the MDC also forced ZANU-PF into the minority in parliament for the first time.

He failed to win enough votes for an outright victory and then pulled out of the run-off in June, accusing the regime of coordinating a brutal campaign of violence that left scores of his supporters dead.

The political squabbling has dimmed hopes for halting Zimbabwe’s economic collapse, with the country buckling under the world’s highest rate of inflation.
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