Financial Gazette (Harare)
Brian Mangwende
2 July 2009
Harare — PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai - fresh from a lukewarm overseas trip to drum up material and financial support for the cash-strapped inclusive government - is under immense pressure from his inner cabal to pull out of the coalition if ZANU-PF remains intransigent about resolving niggling issues plaguing the transitional arrangement.
Government Ministers aligned to the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) dropped the clearest hint so far that the marriage between the country's main political parties was headed for the rocks barely five months after it was solemnised when they boycotted a Cabinet session on Monday that had been brought forward by 24 hours.
Apparently, the MDC-T Ministers were peeved by what they saw as President Robert Mugabe's reluctance to afford Tsvangirai the opportunity to chair Cabinet on the usual Tuesday - the day his rival left the capital for Sirte, Libya to attend an ordinary session of the Assembly of the African Union (AU).
Cabinet, the country's administrative authority, normally sits on Tuesdays.
The Global Political Agreement (GPA), which the three parties appended their signatures on, states that the premier is the deputy chair of Cabinet, meaning Tsvangirai can superintend over its deliberations in the absence of the President.
This interpretation has its shortcomings though since there will always be an acting President in the absence of the Head of State with full mandate to carry out all the functions of the incumbent.
The boycott has, however, exposed pent up emotions in the MDC-T, which is getting agitated over the slow pace in implementing the GPA signed in September last year.
ZANU-PF and the two MDC factions have largely been haggling over the appointments of senior government officials with no end in sight to the bickering.
The MDC-T blames hardliners within President Mugabe's party of stalling progress on the GPA.
But ZANU-PF national chairman John Nkomo hit back this week saying the MDC-T was not being open-minded about the issues.
Nkomo said: "There are also hardliners in the MDC. How do you identify a hardliner? Is one a hardliner by being principled and committed?"
Insiders in the premier's office told The Financial Gazette this week that the MDC-T leader is under pressure from local, regional and international partners to ditch the power-sharing agreement over ZANU-PF's reluctance to fully implement the pact seen as the only practical solution to the country's socio-political and economic logjam.
Upon his return from Europe and the United States on Monday, Prime Minister Tsvangirai plunged into the vortex of simmering frustrations within the MDC-T's alliance partners who want the party to serve ZANU-PF and the smaller faction of the MDC headed by Arthur Mutambara with divorce papers.
For the first time since the formation of the inclusive government in February, Tsvangirai has been forced to float the idea of disengaging from the pact by the party's partners.
All along, the former trade unionist had put on a brave face, assuring the nation and the world at large that the situation in Zimbabwe was under control.
"No one is tied up to this agreement. There is an opportunity for divorce," Tsvangirai said on Tuesday.
The Prime Minister said the international community had expressed reservations over the coalition and asked why after five months the parties had not implemented the GPA, giving credence to the pressure he is under.
"As such, the concerns of the international community are legitimate and the three political parties as signatories to the GPA, and particularly leaders of those parties, must take responsibility for the failure to implement fully the obligations we have signed up to," he said.
MDC-T insiders said the premier might convene an extraordinary meeting of the National Council, the highest decision-making body in the party, this month for direction.
"You see, we are with the people on the ground and the Prime Minister is just the commander. We decide when and how to pull out not him," said an MDC-T insider.
"The temperature is high in the rank and file of the MDC-T to pull out of this government because ZANU-PF is not being sincere. They are throwing spanners left right and centre."
Civic society organisations, which have been fighting in the MDC-T's corner since its formation in 1999, are already up in arms with the inclusive government.
Led by the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition and the National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations, the civic society is holding a consultative meeting this weekend to call for the official boycott of the constitution-making process, which is one of the key mandates of the inclusive government.
As part of the GPA, the three parties to the power-sharing agreement are expected to come up with a people-driven constitution within 18 months to pave the way for the conduct of free and fair elections.
ZANU-PF and the MDC-T are at loggerheads over the constitution-making process.
ZANU-PF would want the Kariba Draft, crafted in a boat in Kariba, to be th e reference point in arriving at the new constitution while the MDC-T is adamant that the supreme law of the country should borrow from various other documents available, including input from the people.
MDC-T spokesperson Nelson Chamisa confirmed pressure on the party's leadership yesterday.
"There is pressure from everywhere," he said.
"Most issues are still contestable. Not one commission is in place, the land audit is not yet done, the Security Council has not yet met, senior soldiers continue to refuse to salute the Prime Minister, there are no media reforms, JOMIC (the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee) is now comatose, our members continue to be arrested, I mean we cannot continue living in the past. There is also pressure from the diplomatic community to see real action and tangible reforms on the ground otherwise what's the point of sticking around when one party remains intransigent?"
In a clear sign that the MDC-T leadership and party members are exasperated by ZANU- PF's alleged antics, Tsvangirai's deputy Thokozani Khupe said on Monday:
"For a long time the MDC has made issue of the unequivocal lack of paradigm shift on the part of ZANU-PF as an actor in the transitional government. For a long time we have remained the polite and subservient upholders of the GPA against clear evidence of the absence of a reliable and honest partner."
Harrison Mudzuri, the MDC-T Zaka Central lawmaker reportedly attacked the premier at the weekend, accusing him of turning a blind eye to alleged continued human rights violations in the first such public confrontation on Tsvangirai by a senior member of his party.
"Our Prime Minister and party leader is just pretending that things are right in the country when nothing has changed," Mudzuri was quoted telling the media.
McDonald Lewanika, the coordinator of Crisis Coalition, said the dispute between the political parties could only be resolved through the guarantors to the GPA - the Southern African Development Community and the AU.
"If they (ZANU-PF and the two MDC formations) fail to resolve these outstanding issues through the guarantors to the GPA, then they should agree to part ways amicably. If there is evidence of deliberate mischief, then the MDC-T can pull out," Lewanika said.
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Bwana Lewanika go back to Zambia and find yourself useful there, achimwene. You are a guest and shall aways be one in Dzimbahwe.