Harare — Next week regional leaders will gather in the DRC for their ordinary Sadc Summit.

A number of issues, mostly to do with peace and security, the global financial crisis and its impact on the region, as well as the 2010 Soccer World Cup to be hosted by outgoing Sadc chair South Africa, will come up for discussion.

Naturally enough, issues of peace and security and economic development will get the most talk time from regional leaders.

In this regard, the political crisis in Madagascar and the security situation in the DRC, which is the incoming chair, are matters that will seize the attention of Sadc Heads of State and Government.

And for the first time in over a year Zimbabwe will most probably be not a main agenda item due to the bloc's sterling efforts to resolve the political strife that characterised this country for almost a decade.

Sadc in 2007 mandated former South African president Cde Thabo Mbeki to mediate in Zimbabwe's political stand-off and his hard work paid off with the signing of the Global Political Agreement in 2008 and the subsequent formation of the inclusive Government in 2009.

The bloc said it would review the arrangement every six months and perhaps the forthcoming Sadc Summit will provide the best opportunity for this first appraisal -- whether or not it is done as a main agenda item or as a side issue.

This review is what might be confusing some people within Zimbabwe and beyond its borders.

For some strange reason, there seems to be a belief that Sadc must physically implement the GPA and maybe that is why MDC-T is trying to hold regional leaders hostage as they prepare for their Summit.

On Tuesday, MDC-T leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai dared Sadc to resolve the "outstanding issues", failure which his party would reserve the right to pull out of the GPA at a moment's notice.

Whichever way one looks at it, Mr Tsvangirai is trying to armtwist Sadc and in any part of the world, it is highly unlikely that such a brand of coersive diplomacy in the name of agenda setting is looked at favourably.

Effectively he is telling Sadc that he is prepared to foment the kind of instability seen before the inclusive Government just because Dr Gideon Gono and Mr Johannes Tomana are still Reserve Bank Governor and Attorney-General respectively.

In short, Mr Tsvangirai is declaring that for him and his party it does not matter whether or not Zimbabwe is stable: what matters is who occupies what office.

And that, quite frankly, means all the talk of outstanding issues on his part is nothing more than a quest to impose his party's own preferences on national matters.

Much has also been said before about Mr Tsvangirai's declared reluctance to recognise the reality of sanctions.

"Restrictive measures", he prefers to call them; never mind the contents of America's Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act that makes it abundantly clear that sanctions are very real.

Maybe Sadc leaders would like to have a small chat about this attempt to indulge in semantics at the expense of Zimbabwe's development.

The bloc as a unit and regional leaders in their individual capacities as Heads of State and Government and as neighbours who care about what happens in Zimbabwe have said time and again that sanctions must go.

If Mr Tsvangirai so desires, perhaps he could go to the DRC and tell them that they were wrong to issue various resolutions and declarations over the years that made it clear that sanctions are real and they must go.

Maybe he could also convince them that Dr Gono and Mr Tomana are a bigger impediment to national development than the removal of the "restrictive measures".